Undead Still Seems too Strong

Sorry to butt in with our guild description here, but it fits perfectly:

"We are the Dark Inquisition, sworn to cleanse Olympus from elven filth, dwarven stench and human disease. As we did in worlds now dead, we will do again in those yet unborn.
We will purify you in blood and fire, time and again until the forums boil with the tears of the weaklings: "nerf the Undead, debuff the Orcs, force the Dark Legion to play by the rules!"
We are a group of old friends and friends in training, we are here for one thing and one thing only: to have fun together!"

Undead LI were very powerful, but so are dwarven HI and elven archers. I hope that the undead have not been nerfed too much on the high end game, where units have maxed morale and more than just LI are being used...

Ala wrote:

Yep, bringing more li into battle seems to be an even more viable option for UD in T1 or even in T2.
And now not 2 of my UD HI will be defeated by one dwarven HI, but 3.

They shooted with nukes for midgets, and they blew up a building instead.

Tater's seriously your guild message has nothing to do with this thread and please don't post a recruitment message again unless it is in the Alliance part of Battle con forum. Ala whose one dwarf HI can beat your 3 HI?

The sad part is that almost everyone on here agreed that all the Devs really needed to do was up the AP on LI and LiA for UD and it would have solved the problems in PvE where the UD would have way more units than anyone could handle regardless of tactics. And even in PvP where it would again allow for atleast an even humber of units on the battlefield.

Increasing base units AP would not solve anything in pve. When i take 3300 AP to a battle i face between 4000-5200 AP. Do you really think it would matter if those 6-7 light undead units were costing 3-4 AP more each? A difference of less than a half percent.

No-one I guess, Dobraine's Hi defeated 2 of my hi face to face though before the nerf, so it can be even worse after the nerf. I didn't try it yet.

Tibr I was speaking for the smaller guy, since I don't fight on insane and suicide. Think about the difference for the new guy when that 1 extra unit of UD comes at you making them hard as all get out to defeat. Then draw the UD several times in a row.

Now the next thing I guess I will ask, since the information we have on units is out of date here, http://www.battleconforum.com/t583-starting-stats-and-caps-of-units-per-race , maybe we could get an update to there so we know what the true costs are. Since I don't have an dark side character.

This is the longest and most famous thread in the Forums and I wouldn't want the Community to think that I am ignoring it.

I want to express my opinion and this will also be a reply to this thread Burn RuneSlayer, you Undead lover!

Without a doubt...where there is smoke...there has to be a fire.

It seems that the majority of the community believes that the Undead race has certain advantages which make it very very difficult to beat in PvP battles. A lot of opinions have been expressed, lots of frustration and we have to find the golden mean...

1. I do not believe that the AP difference between the Undead units and the units of the other races is important enough, so that a change would solve the problems posted above.

2. It is true that the LIA has a combat speed of 6, which makes it the deadliest LI/LIA in the game. Unbreakable, fast, more troops in a unit and with a lethal combat speed. (WTF moment..?) Yes, they do start with lower abilities than the other races, but with research, levels and of course items, the initial disadvantage disappears.

3. It is also true that "Armor" as an attribute needs some... love. With high Strength a unit can make the enemy armor almost ineffective. I want to provide an example: With 60 Armor a unit has 45% chance to avoid damage. With 70 Strength, an enemy unit reduces the Armor Save to 25%. Due to the fact that Strength "cuts" lots from the Armor Save, the LI becomes an inferior unit to the LIA. If we were to decrease the Armor Save loss due to the Strength of the instigator, then the Armor Save chance would rise a bit and make armored units feel...more like ACTUALLY wearing armor (especially when comparing LI to LIA)

4. Morale...Since the Undead units have bigger size (more troops compared to the units of other races), they have a longer battle longevity in the battlefield since they cannot be made to flee and they will not easily Shiver due to the amount of troops needed to reach the Morale threshold for that to occur. So, they are unbreakable...they do not have a slow combat speed compared to the other races...they have more troops...their initial stats are lower than the other races but research, level ups and items correct this "problem"...and their stats caps are not that much lower than the other races...

Possible solutions to balance things out:

a) Change combat speed of LIA from 6 to 7. This will transform them from a meat grinder to a dangerous unit.

b) Reduce their initial Morale to as low as 55 with cap being 70, compared to the other races (90-110). This should correct the problem with Shiver effect not being triggered easily as their units have many troops and therefore the Morale loss per casualty is significantly lower, considering the fact that they also gain Morale when they inflict casualties. This will ALSO make Undead players SHIVER to the idea of being flanked, reared, as it can prove to be devastating with the low Morale and the Shiver effect of 2-3 damage per failed Flee Check (Morale Check).

c) Change the Armor/Strength dependency so as to make Armor count a bit more than it does right now. This will not affect just the Undead units but the whole system instead.


I want to proceed with the above changes, so what do you think? The question of course goes to all players....Undead, Humans, Dark Legion, Dwarves, Elves, Orcs...

My initial thoughts are:

1. Only undead LIA get a bump in their reaction? I'd kind of like to see their LI get one too   

2. 55/70 morale seems excessive. But people playing undead are laughing at how easy they cap morale right now maybe if undead had very low starting morale but capped morale would be relatively the same as it is now (perhaps a slight adjustment to 75) maybe that would help?

3. I like armor being more important a lot but sounds like dwarves might get seriously OP. Artillery hardly scratch their HI in suicide as it is and some races like orcs have lower armor across the board so they might get a lil UP.

Those are just my concerns. Obviously some kind of simulations should be in order to figure out the right balance.

The fact that every other LIA in the game have the 'unbreakable' ability instead of the 'undead' ability should also be a factor.  

If I understand correctly, that means that when undead LIA fail morale checks, they take damage like all other undead units. When every other LIA in the game fail morale checks they don't suffer the same 2-3 damage per check.  They simply gain the benefits of being fearless without the drawbacks.

Undead light infantry may be stronger than most light infantry, but other races have powerful units too.  Dwarven heavy infantry for example are superior to undead heavy infantry and elven archers are superior to undead archers.  I don't think that these units should be nerfed until they're exactly equal, the races should have different strengths and playstyles.

I'd be more in favor of solution C, and not solutions A and B because I think the undead have been nerfed pretty hard already with the latest patch.

If armor stats will be buffed, Dwarfs will need to be nerfed and/or give higher caps to morale and armor to other races (which had lower previously)

Anduin is right (partially), problem is that in Tier one UD can use all their strong units, while other races can't (dwarven hi isn't that good for tier one compared to later tiers for example)

So probably in later tiers races are more equal but in tier 1 a bunch of UD Li is Op.
That's why nerfing the whole race won't be good, those units causing the problems has to be nerfed (and with the previously mentioned cap raise for HI for example can make equality for higher tiers too).

This is all good but I will dedicate this post for UD LI mostly.

hum you forgot about the LI, at lvl 9 a LI ball can wipe anything in the game, flanking? by the time I send units to flank that ball I notice some of mine already starting to shiver and flee. and the one flanking also flees/dies way to fast as its fighting many troops it flanked and the UD LI get back that morale loss from the flank. 7 reaction, 45% to evade damage, 25 units, less ap, unbreakable, all just for the cost of tiny stats initially can can be got very easily via lvl ups, research,banners. Why do they have 7 reaction? thats faster then elves which are known for speed. Are a pile of bones that fast? talking about speed nerfing movement spd is a possible thing too, because mostly i see LI swarms in t1 t2 which are an automatic win esp in a ball formation, no strategy, no tactics, just move forward. Sometimes they hold ur entire army with 2 units all flank with the rest and its over before it even begun.

A sword with 9ap cost gives 10 strength, put this a unit with 20 units all 20hp units benefit with this buff, same weapon ap cost, for UD units benefits all 25 units  

Same goes with the HI, a gl weapon for 40 ap cost 20+ stat X 20+ stat affects 25 units worth of 50hp while others 32 or 40.

The LI's ability followed by all the upper hands it could possibly make it the best unit in the game, imagine all those LI piled up have 1/2 chance to slip the dmg away from them.

Almost everyone is pvp sick of UD whenever I search for a 2nd partner for a 2v2 its always like "I'm done for now until the devs take action about this" It seems only the UD players are in pvp.

Even in PvE I did a hard 147 deaths victory vs UD,and against a DL 26 death In NM. so does this say UD are the hardest regardless what difficult you go? I use same strategy and the was no cannons in both PvE's so there is something definitely wrong.(Went equip-less/naked in both)  147 and 26 has a huge difference.
I have screenshots if you want and don't believe this.

So, possible nerfs for UD?

1-Less movement speed (ESP; LI*) beside they came back from the dead, not athletes.
2-Less reaction (ESP; LI*) same as what i said for movement^
3-Higher ap cost.
3-ability 2-3 unit loss is nothing compared to a unit fleeing and leaving the battle field or being chased and losing the rest of the units, hence 3-5 seems more logical.
4-slighly less defensive ability on LI. (15% lvl 3, 25% lvl 6 35% lvl 9)
5-melee penalty should be greater when flanked, they shouldn't destroy the flanker Like its just a fly passing by.
6-Playing with initial and final(cap) stats.
7-If all this fails, just remove the unbreakable thing and implement it back when you come up with a decent balance.

This will balance things out, not just testing units in a 1v1 situation and then adding caps, without considering the many other factors. Any player that played before  on old server is UD and if he was already UD back then he still is. If you ask them why you didn't switch things up they will give you bullocks and will never admit why they didn't try new things.

ala make a good point there

mssing in with armor is not a grat idea that will hit all units ad balace thing will be all over again first probably with dwarfs

elven with their great archer unit are grat for coops and pve when units are just marching to fight and open spaces in pvp but when there is lots of obstacles they sre preaty usless to make them cout there are 2 option

1. lower range with all archers and buff mislle/streng to get more damege per shot but dont have so many shots until opponent got close
2. allow all archers shoot through obstacles with 50% of dmg debuff for each obstacle ( withoutt obstacle 4 units killed 1 obstacle 2 units killed 3 obstacles 1 unit killes etc )

and i like idea of lowering morale of undead but then probably we shoul go back with vacume thing to 1-3 probably

@Bblazer:
The effectiveness of a ball of units is something that does need to be addressed for both sides.  Back when I played on the light side I saw plenty of light players using the strategy aswell.  It works so well because all of the units in the ball fight only a fraction of the enemy's forces at any one time.

When playing against a computer all of the units in the ball will attack the first few of the computer's units that they encounter.  These units will quickly flee or die before the rest of the computer's units engage.  Effectively the computer loses so badly because only a fraction of its forces are fighting at any given point in time.

If some of your units are fleeing by the time you flank the UD ball in PvP then you're getting destroyed in the same way as the computer is.  While you're trying to circle around and flank only a fraction of your forces are engaging the skeleball, and those get overwhelmed by superior numbers.  I would agree with your #5 suggestion of increasing the effectiveness of flanking to make these balls less effective.

I don't view this as a problem that is unique to the undead.  Having played UD and humans I can tell you that an undead LI ball certainly does not wipe "anything in the game". Try sending an undead LI ball against a mob of dwarven HI / LIA.  The UD will get slaughtered.  The UD were just nerfed, they don't need to be nerfed again before the dust settles.

Hmm, that is a better original title for my post. Consider me properly mollified and chastised lol. But, well, frankly I did feel you were ignoring this thread... ;D

1. AP Difference would have to be changed to such a degree that it actually limited the number of units UD bring. Without actually looking at the numbers I'm guessing this could lead to problems for a lot of low level UD players w/Barracks level and AP as well. I like the idea of a horde of undead as my enemy, it adds a lot of character to the gameplay. Bblazer's point about gear having the same AP cost for UD but buffing an extra 25% units may actually be a better place to look at. If you increase gear AP for 25% for UD, how would this affect gameplay?

2. This unit in particular is a problem, and to me is broken for one reason; UD as a race are unbreakable, their LIA should kinda suck. Reducing reaction time would help, but would you think about keeping reaction the same (it should be better than LI) and reducing the number of units to 20? This would make their LIA more mobile, better in a straight up fight, but more fragile and more susceptible to shiver/flee. It would also give an added incentive to players to keep their LI as the van of their army.

3. As much as I would love an armor buff for my units, I have to begrudgingly say I think this could lead to many more unbalanced units across the board. Dwarfs in particular would need to be handled very carefully. Increased armor on certain DL units (esp. calv) might tip the balance too far for them as well. I like the idea of adjusting how much of an impact STR has on ARM instead of adjusting ARM caps or numbers, it seems like a better approach.

4. How easy would it be for you to change the thresholds for shiver and flee damage? ie first shiver is at 65% of morale (I think ), if UD shivered at 70% it would strip off about one round of combat before they shiver. It would also allow a good flanking maneuver to be a lot more devastating initially. Regarding flee damage; I feel like 2-3 may actually be too much bonus damage, especially if every unit's death triggers a flee charge. In this case, the UD numbers work against them as once they are below the morale threshold they have more 'available deaths' to trigger flee damage than a typical unit. A couple bad rolls could remove 8 (2+2failed checks @max) units. I would rather do consistent extra damage early (ie return to 1-2 flee and raise morale trigger numbers for UD) than try to get lucky with a flank or two and 'nuke' a unit. Perhaps 2-3 flee damage could remain for rearing; to make it matter more?

a) I don't think reducing the LIA's reaction speed makes much sense, LIA are supposed to be fast and hit hard.

b) If you reduce morale too much it will make for an interesting equip choice with banners. +15 morale is only 5 level ups going to morale, so higher level UD players will likely NEVER need morale on their banners. +move, +STR would probably be the best two stat combo w/out Morale, so now you are looking at a lot of extra fast, extra strong UD. Scary! Also, even at morale 55 the extra 5 troops/unit do a lot to mitigate it. If this is the best way to make UD more vulnerable to flanking and early morale loss, that might actually balance better. The only problem is; isn't going fast and hitting hard kinda the orc's thing?

c) As noted above, I worry changing the whole armor system just because of UD is asking to unbalance it. If you feel these changes are actually better balanced across the whole system, I think that should be a seperate (and very interesting) topic.

I would also like to say; thank you for this post. It reminds me that my frustration and feelings of dev non-involvement were just frustration and feelings, not fact. It is easy to lose perspective and just complain and expect instant results, in your favour, but it isn't really right and I'm sorry for that. Keep doin yer good work, and ignore those effegies I may or may not have been responsible for... *hides matches*.

RuneSlayer wrote:

This is the longest and most famous thread in the Forums and I wouldn't want the Community to think that I am ignoring it.

I want to express my opinion and this will also be a reply to this thread Burn RuneSlayer, you Undead lover!

Without a doubt...where there is smoke...there has to be a fire.

It seems that the majority of the community believes that the Undead race has certain advantages which make it very very difficult to beat in PvP battles. A lot of opinions have been expressed, lots of frustration and we have to find the golden mean...

1. I do not believe that the AP difference between the Undead units and the units of the other races is important enough, so that a change would solve the problems posted above.

2. It is true that the LIA has a combat speed of 6, which makes it the deadliest LI/LIA in the game. Unbreakable, fast, more troops in a unit and with a lethal combat speed. (WTF moment..?) Yes, they do start with lower abilities than the other races, but with research, levels and of course items, the initial disadvantage disappears.

3. It is also true that "Armor" as an attribute needs some... love. With high Strength a unit can make the enemy armor almost ineffective. I want to provide an example: With 60 Armor a unit has 45% chance to avoid damage. With 70 Strength, an enemy unit reduces the Armor Save to 25%. Due to the fact that Strength "cuts" lots from the Armor Save, the LI becomes an inferior unit to the LIA. If we were to decrease the Armor Save loss due to the Strength of the instigator, then the Armor Save chance would rise a bit and make armored units feel...more like ACTUALLY wearing armor (especially when comparing LI to LIA)

4. Morale...Since the Undead units have bigger size (more troops compared to the units of other races), they have a longer battle longevity in the battlefield since they cannot be made to flee and they will not easily Shiver due to the amount of troops needed to reach the Morale threshold for that to occur. So, they are unbreakable...they do not have a slow combat speed compared to the other races...they have more troops...their initial stats are lower than the other races but research, level ups and items correct this "problem"...and their stats caps are not that much lower than the other races...

Possible solutions to balance things out:

a) Change combat speed of LIA from 6 to 7. This will transform them from a meat grinder to a dangerous unit.

b) Reduce their initial Morale to as low as 55 with cap being 70, compared to the other races (90-110). This should correct the problem with Shiver effect not being triggered easily as their units have many troops and therefore the Morale loss per casualty is significantly lower, considering the fact that they also gain Morale when they inflict casualties. This will ALSO make Undead players SHIVER to the idea of being flanked, reared, as it can prove to be devastating with the low Morale and the Shiver effect of 2-3 damage per failed Flee Check (Morale Check).

c) Change the Armor/Strength dependency so as to make Armor count a bit more than it does right now. This will not affect just the Undead units but the whole system instead.


I want to proceed with the above changes, so what do you think? The question of course goes to all players....Undead, Humans, Dark Legion, Dwarves, Elves, Orcs...

Nerf UD more, and I might consider throwing all my progress overboard, to pick a new race, due to the high healing costs already (olympus). At this moment with the loc increase I am just able to earn some profit from hard matches (300-500 heal costs, 600-900 profit on hard matches, co-ops just burn my gold into the ground), but with the proposed changes above I doubt any UD will be able to generate a reasonable profit from battle.

Anduin I agree with your thoughts but its the UD LI that's causing the problem mostly and the LI skele ball has 45% to dodge hits, as I said so that's like just saying 1/2 of the time your hits wont count while they are surely doing damage to you.

The elf LI ball is not as effective even if it has the same ability but they still flee. Once one unit flees the pressure is reduced and its over.

This latest UD nerf only works when they are being overrun, which most likely doesn't happen. So yes other race LI ball works but not close to what the UD's LI does.

^ With the latest patch, I don't agree with that statement. I think a dwarven HI/LIA ball is stronger than a skeleball, easily.

hmm, i agree that UD are overpowered and need to be nerfed but when i read suggestion i belive some would cripple UD for all loses.

increasing meaning of armor would be the best solution, it would require some tests to balance all races again. UD has the lowest strenght and armor of all races so increasing meaning of armor (and with it strenght will be more important too) would nerf UD the most.

Remember one thing PVP is not fighting against AI. Know you army strong and weak points. This is the key to victory. For example the best unit/units in army (usually HI) are excellent to tank enemy force, while weaker units may flank. Do not attack HI using LI without flanking it is almost free morale raise for HI. LIA are excellent to flank/rear due to bonus to melee for flanking/rearing and bonus to strenght from skill.

When you face me do not tell that UD are overpowered but belive that my troops are stronger (better items), i am fully aware of it and know how to use them with high efficiency

The update hasn't happened yet, but yes dwarf HI would be colossal, if armour was more effective. If passive abilities don't count towards caps then it would solve the problem, considering reducing dwarf HI cap but increase something else, endurance most probable.

BUT STILL, its veeeery hard to cap things on this server so i doubt anyone can cap that high Armour, atleast not this early stage.

After being a top100 on both human, DL and UD.

The new patch exposed the weakness of their strength: Maintenance cost.
They face heavy losses and the low ap means lower rewards.

UD units can gear up GL and still be acceptable on AP. That way they become mammuth class units.
So, Why not Raise the base AP for that units?

UD units have a lot of troops and can take more kills. So why not lower the troop count.

UD are unbreakable. So why not take them that ability?

Damn, UD are unbeatable on low Tier PvP especially if the UD player is more experienced. I made a suggestion on how to fix PVP so everyone could win and lose. But since everyone wants to win all the time, other races should be nerfed so they win.
Guess what... It's a lonely place when you win most of the PvP battles. Its better to have 25 wins out of 50 than 15 out of 15. There should be a balancing mecanism and I don't mean PvP trading or bringing a low ap army.

On PvE they are a strong race but the maintenance costs makes them subpair, you have high repair costs. You HAVE to get a lot of gear to bring cp. That costs money, you have a very slow progress.

And then when you are about to field 10 units, you find that the return on the investment you made is going to disapear because the one thing your race is good at is OP. Not even the UD race bonus is good....

UD is the only dark race that can go head to head with Elfs and Dwarves, why don't you nerf those in the process.

Better to know what your race is better at before your complain what the other races are better at. There is a trade off.

Why don't all units have the same stats and abilities regardless of race?

Why can't we change races without losing progress?

WHY CAN'T ALL OF US WIN ALL THE TIME?

Rune, why are you mostly talking about nerfing UD LIA when the hole 8 pages are filled with concerns and even an agreement that UD LI is the main concern. An agreement that even UD players as Ala, kuba and myself agreed upon.
UD LIA is most certainly not the problem, it is UD LI which is freakishly strong.
All your ideas should be directed at ud LI, whichs reaction speed should be increased to 8.
Your armor idea should nerf ud as well since they are the race with the lowest armor over all. So good ideas, just with the wrong recipient.
LI instead of LIA

Checked the armor caps again. If you increase the meaning of armor it seems that would result in a punishment not only for UD, who surely do need some nerfing, but also for the entire dark faction as well. Cause the dark armor caps are lower than those of the light. I believe this idea sounds good but will have unaccountable repercussions, such as further nerfing of the orcs, which i find to be the weakest race already.

1. If this armor system was put in the elves would die due to low armor

2. Instead of nerfing UD and making them quit just make all the lower races stronger

3. the elves really don't have a strong unit in pvp, I almost never see a person with archers unless in tier 1 or low 2

Rapidinhas wrote:

WHY CAN'T ALL OF US WIN ALL THE TIME?

I would like to point out, very specifically, that my concerns with UD are NOT related to PVP. On hard PVE I win 19/20 battles vs other races and ~7/10 v. undead. Maybe 8/10, but those are wins due to army, my 6 melee v. hopefully a merc or a bunch of archers. If the AI rolls an army with 5+ melee units I am looking at a win rate of ABOUT 1 or 2 in ten. This sample is tiny so that number could change, but it is pretty depressing at 2 or even 3.

I expect to lose. I expect to lose more as difficulties of solo's increase. I certainly expect to lose in PVP to better players. BUT, I prefer to lose due to my own mistakes. Whether those are army composition, tactical errors, bad gearing, etc, they are my fault. When I fight UD I feel I'm flipping coins or rolling dice, not playing this game.

I also don't want them nerfed down to the point where UD players experience the same frustration; so I will direct a couple questions your way if you don't mind.

1) How often DO you lose in PVE? I have never played undead and would like to know.

2) In PVE when you are flanked how often do you lose that unit? How often do flanking units flee from it?

3) Since we are all complaining about LI and to a lesser degree LIA; how do you feel the higher level UD units are in terms of balance? Perhaps a change that improves one of them at the cost of LI would be better for UD players overall as well?

4) Do you enjoy playing any one race more than the others, out of the three you mentioned?

Huzzah Runeslayer posted in this thread   

Now although I think the main problem is Undead LI I would like to point something out that I don't blame on UD LIA at all but just something that I thought was odd.

http://prntscr.com/2l49ar

Now as you will notice Ala's LIA are ripping apart my godlike LI. Now his godlike stuff is really good. Not great but very good considering the new stats for godlikes. Now I had won that battle because luckily, that same godlike LI hadn't fled against that LIA and allowed my other two LI to overpower that UD LIA and then flank his LIA. Maybe that is where the strength comes over in armor since his LIA obviously were kicking my LI's but. It could also be a random number generator just not showing love to the LI. Anyway just something I wanted to point out. By the way I haven't tried going against an Undead LI ball with my new godlike HI but when I went against them with rares and epics it was terrible. Even flanking like Bblazer said didn't work and my HI could hold them and allowed my LI/LIA to flank and even rear them but my flankers were just killed too quickly while my HI were then slowly whittled down. Also like Ala mentioned fighting in tier one with HI is difficult. If your enemy knows what to do they will send one LI to distract your HI while the mass of their units then destroy your other LI/LIA. That is if they even want to try tactics. I'm also not saying the LI ball works every time but I believe without very superior gear to your enemy that LI ball will crush you especially in tier one with such low ap which doesn't allow good gear.