Undead Still Seems too Strong

Try flanking next time. Like the rest of us.

flanking is for weak

RuneSlayer wrote:

1. When I mentioned a change in the dependency between Armor and Strength, I never meant that we need to buff Armor. I am strictly referring to the penalty on Armor Save derived by the Strength of the instigator. This will not affect just the Dwarves, but all the races. Given that Dwarves have the highest Armor rating in HI, that will make them NOT stronger, but it will increase their longevity. However, same applies to the rest of the units as this change will work for all units. Finally, the change will not be a dramatic one, so as to cause imbalances...

2. The Undead are known for coming in numbers....LOTS and LOTS of numbers...Since the units have already more troops than the other units of the other races, it is possible to raise their AP in order to prevent the swarming of Undead units. The AP increase of the LI, LIA will match the AP of other units....I do not want to decrease the number of troops in the Undead units...In fact, I want to make "surgical" tweaks which will not affect the gameplay of the Undead players.

3. It is possible to play with the LOC effect and the Morale ability. Instead of losing 2-3 HPs when a failed Flee Check occurs...it could be a progressive ability (curse)... Depending on the Morale of the Undead unit, there will be a probability to sustain 1 damage starting from 90% MOBA (Morale in Battle) and with the probability increasing with every 10% drop of the MOBA (damage could increase as well)... With every casualty, it becomes more and more difficult for the Necromancer to keep the souls away from the afterlife...

4. The "ball" effect IS a problem...not just for the Undead but for all the players. This is NOT a tactical movement... We will definitely do something about it...

My internet went down last night so I never got the chance to respond properly, my apologies.  I like solution 2 here the most as it would focus more on the specific UD unit that people are complaining about.  I don't think there needs to be increased damage for flee checks for the other UD units, like UD HI, which nobody thought was overpowered from the beginning.

If balance could be obtained by not effecting the race as a whole, or every race in the case of armor changes, then that would be preferable I think.

Rapidinhas wrote:

Scaren wrote:

Rapid I find it hilarious that you think Dwarf LIA is better than Undead LIA. By the way like Kuba said this thread is about UD and not other races. Mostly I see the problem in pvp. Yes I will say that they are harder to beat in pve and I get more casualties against them but I just chalk that up to Unbreakable and I still win so I don't worry about it. One more thing I would like to point out about the balls of units is that I have yet to see an effective balls of units for other races except Undead. Basically because of their unbreakable. I don't think their numbers or their Unbreakable should be changed though simply because that is what they have been set up to be.

1) I never said Dwarf LIA is better than Undead LIA.

2) This thread is about UD being better than other races, it should be about DL and Orcs behing below average. IMO, Dark side has one good race and two bad, make it two good and one bad like the Light side and the perception will change.

3) LIAballs are effective regardless of race.

1) sorry then it wasn't you but I remember reading a post by someone that said dwarf LIA were stronger than Undead LIA.

3) I still don't find LIA balls effective for dwarf. If I actually brought all LIA I would flank instead of just balling them up anyway.

Bblazer wrote:

Elf archers have extremely low strength. cap actually lowest with the same cap as UD (50)

But yes thats what elf are know for, marksmanship.

I think bringing lore in to justify the power of a unit is a bad way to make an argument.  I could just as easily bring lore in to say "that's what undead are known for, numbers and fearlessness" to try to justify the pre-nerf state of the undead.  The statement "that's what elf are known for, marksmanship" is no different.

Balancing should come first, and elven archers are hands down the best archers in the game.  Dwarven heavy infantry are also extremely powerful compared to all other races.

Scaren wrote:

Rapidinhas wrote:

Scaren wrote:

Rapid I find it hilarious that you think Dwarf LIA is better than Undead LIA. By the way like Kuba said this thread is about UD and not other races. Mostly I see the problem in pvp. Yes I will say that they are harder to beat in pve and I get more casualties against them but I just chalk that up to Unbreakable and I still win so I don't worry about it. One more thing I would like to point out about the balls of units is that I have yet to see an effective balls of units for other races except Undead. Basically because of their unbreakable. I don't think their numbers or their Unbreakable should be changed though simply because that is what they have been set up to be.

1) I never said Dwarf LIA is better than Undead LIA.

2) This thread is about UD being better than other races, it should be about DL and Orcs behing below average. IMO, Dark side has one good race and two bad, make it two good and one bad like the Light side and the perception will change.

3) LIAballs are effective regardless of race.

1) sorry then it wasn't you but I remember reading a post by someone that said dwarf LIA were stronger than Undead LIA.

3) I still don't find LIA balls effective for dwarf. If I actually brought all LIA I would flank instead of just balling them up anyway.

I said that dwarf LIA were better than undead LIA, and I stand by it, I have played dwarf and I have played undead. Dwarf LIA are far more effective, I would use 5 HI to hold a line, then hit the enemy in the rear with a mob of 4 LIA, it broke their whole army within seconds, every time...undead LIA do not have the same impact

You no doubt do find it hilarious because you are a dwarf and have the better LIA

Stats also support the fact that dwarf LIA are better
-5 troops
-2 reaction
-2 speed
+10 strength
+10 endurance
+10 morale
Both unbreakable, but dwarf LIA have no LOC

I never had any problem beating undead when I was a dwarf, and personally I find it a bit pathetic to hear you all continuously crying about the undead, even now that they have been nerfed, twice, and units like HI have gone from being average to a complete liability to use, as they crumble easily yet add a lot of AP to the enemy army. But I am not surprised, you are getting what you want, weakening of the enemy, and so while the going is good you keep pushing for more
How about we start comparing dwarf HI to undead HI? How about we nerf dwarf HI next? Then comes elf archers.......etc, etc

Every race has it's advantages and disadvantages, all you need to do is use the strengths of your race and exploit the weaknesses of the enemy. Undead strength is they come in numbers, so make sure you find a position you cannot be flanked by them, then when they are all sucked in hit them in the rear. Undead weakness is ranged attacks, something that as a dwarf I could completely ignore (until I killed all the melee units), but as undead ranged attacks are very damaging and I have to adjust my tactics to try and avoid as much as possible

IMO the nerfing has already gone too far, due to people finding undead LI OP the whole race has been nerfed to the effect that LI are about the only unit that can now hold it's own. To ask for more nerfing still is completely unfair, imo it needs to be reversed a bit.

However everybody has different opinions and their own biases, and nobody will ever agree. As much as I appreciate how much the devs take into consideration the views of us players, in this situation I feel the only fair outcome will be if the devs can run their own simulations, with ALL races and different army configurations so that they can judge the situation from an unbiased point of view and then make any neccessary changes

Unfortunately those simulations fail.

They made simulations ages ago with sample size of 100 000 or something like that.
Before the 2 or 3 UD nerf.
You know what they said after those simulations? "Everything is balanced"
Then the nerfs came.
Simulations didn't include tactics I guess, or they didn't count with the players knowing better what stats are important for a certain unit. And they didn't include the non-tactics either (like the li-ball stupidity).
And who knows what else. So simulations aren't enough I guess.

Yes, but you can add human run simulations to the AI simulations to do that...of course not 100 000, but enough to know. Better than everyone here arguing with their own personal biases forming the judgements

Ala wrote:

Unfortunately those simulations fail.

They made simulations ages ago with sample size of 100 000 or something like that.
Before the 2 or 3 UD nerf.
You know what they said after those simulations? "Everything is balanced"
Then the nerfs came.
Simulations didn't include tactics I guess, or they didn't count with the players knowing better what stats are important for a certain unit. And they didn't include the non-tactics either (like the li-ball stupidity).
And who knows what else. So simulations aren't enough I guess.

In order to prevent false rumors from spreading and giving the wrong idea about things, I would suggest people to know exactly what they say before they post something, otherwise their posts will lose weight in time.

The simulations were 100% accurate. They were comparing each unit and race with the initial stats and the stat caps.

It is not possible to simulate players' behaviors and various items and chances of special abilities being triggered. This is no rock-paper-scissors.

Therefore, there will always be someone who will say that this unit is OP or that that unit needs to be nerfed.

The community expresses its concerns and opinions and then we go ahead and check to see whether there is a valid reason behind a concern or not. It is amazing how people believe (and even mentioned it in Global Chat) that I can be "dragged" to changing something according to what the majority wants. The fact that I decided to intervene in the conversation regarding the Undead after 7 pages...only proves that I read all posts very carefully, checked the issue myself and found that "something" had to change in order to balance things out.

As I mentioned in another post, not all the people will be happy with changes that occur in BC. Granted, as a player, I'd prefer to go back to the time when Gold was flowing and I had no problem repairing items, upgrading buildings, researching technologies and piling up Gold so I can have my evening bath in it... Yes, as a player, I would react to that change because YOU, the devs, are making my life a bit more difficult and I need to put more effort and think more than I used to in order to progress in the game... Thing is... My job is not to keep everyone happy, but to strive for the balance in the economy and battle mechanics and to make BC the game we want it to be... I will listen to you, I will respect your opinions, sometimes I will agree, sometimes I will disagree, but in the end...it is my call...as it is your call whether you will continue following the development of this game and the next one coming up... Sometimes some changes will bring more changes...but that's how it is...a never ending struggle to balance things out...unless of course you want me to turn BC to a boring, casual game...

I am sorry..but this will never happen.

RuneSlayer wrote:

Update: Undead were not losing Morale when they were sustaining damage due to LOC. This will be fixed with the update in few minutes.

Thank you about you insites, Rune.

Previous post:
After this change, UD got a lot weaker and should be now the easiest race to PvE against.
UD units just start melting after they get Flanked.

Had A 100% health LI engaged with an 20% archer and it was flanked by one 5% unit AI LI that died right away. It continued losing troops nevertheless ending with 10% health after killing the archer.

LOC makes UD too vulnerable to flanking, even fleeing units don't die that fast.

new post:
Nevermind, must been one of those low probability events.

In my experiences....to date...the UD numbers simply seem to overwhelm at all times. Even when both sides have the same unit count, I have several naked troops while the UD have HI geared to the tits, LI in full gear (if only epic and not gl) and LIA with weaps and/or banners.

Perhaps it's simply the monotany of only being able to fight UD since no darkie seems to be of a different race...but (for me) pvp is starting to lose the allure it has gained in the past months because of this.

I would agree with Clambam that the other two races are too weak; though that does not mean the UD are fairly balanced. I'm assuming the flock of UD players isn't due to the other dark races being so terrible as it is the UD being notoriously strong by comparison to every other race (in pvp, anyways...TBH they're my preferred pve enemy)

From my perspective the only 'nerf' that is really needed is an increase on unit AP, or a decrease on their allowed GS per level...since they are able to bring more units that seem to be able to not only compare, but win in 1v1 scenarios regularly; with the numbers advantage (in units brought to battle, not number in each unit) that should not be the case.

Could be that I'm gearing entirely wrong...I'm aiming for a 'well balanced' setup. I'm seriously open to any suggestions as to how to counter the UD in pvp. It is a different matter entirely from countering dwarven HI, in my eyes.

Also, with regards to Dwarf HI....just gear for strength if you really wanna kill em xD

RuneSlayer wrote:

As I mentioned in another post, not all the people will be happy with changes that occur in BC. Granted, as a player, I'd prefer to go back to the time when Gold was flowing and I had no problem repairing items, upgrading buildings, researching technologies and piling up Gold so I can have my evening bath in it... Yes, as a player, I would react to that change because YOU, the devs, are making my life a bit more difficult and I need to put more effort and think more than I used to in order to progress in the game... Thing is... My job is not to keep everyone happy, but to strive for the balance in the economy and battle mechanics and to make BC the game we want it to be... I will listen to you, I will respect your opinions, sometimes I will agree, sometimes I will disagree, but in the end...it is my call...as it is your call whether you will continue following the development of this game and the next one coming up... Sometimes some changes will bring more changes...but that's how it is...a never ending struggle to balance things out...unless of course you want me to turn BC to a boring, casual game...

I am sorry..but this will never happen.

An excellent point.
Respect to Runeslayer.

Well I am back to report my experiences after changing the undead LOC damage.

In tier 1, the change has barely made a difference. Fighting undead in pvp is still extremely difficult (or sometimes simply suicide) and fighting AS undead is still extremely easy. In tier 2 though, it seems to have helped some against the nearly naked ball strategies at least, since I can bring 7 units including 3 HI. Still if those T2 undead I have beat would expand their strategies they could still easily whoop me, but at least I have had some chance of survival now.

I like the idea of making their LI ability a little weaker, raising AP on LI/LIA to normal amount, and lowering LOC damage to 1-3, however I doubt this will really solve the problem, though it will definitely help a bit and most importantly, it should not unbalance anything else in the process. As for undead HI, I still have very little experience with them at maximum T2 status so I can't comment on that, but undead HI do seem to be pretty balanced at maximum T1 status.

And to put a bit in perspective here, I once soloed a dark legion HI (225 AP) with my undead LI (159 AP) head on head combat, no flanks or ranged units etc. and won. Considering HI are generally supposed to be flanked to be beaten, are stronger to make up for their 10 speed, and no other LI could have possibly done that much damage to a DL HI at 159 AP there is definitely a real issue here. They aren't just strong, they are incredible. They aren't just the best LI. They are the best LI by a huge margin, they are even much better than any races LIA. As for undead LIA, they are indeed stronger than any other races LIA, however they have LOC damage which no other LIA has. So I say they are stronger than they should be, but not by as large a margin as the LI.

Someone asked what is the downside/weakness of undead? There are two, actually. The first one is a copout though. Undead are so strong on head on head combat that many undead players grow comfortable just charging in and not even trying to flank or hold units off. With the right tactics and set up (and some luck), you can beat an undead who does this. The other weakness is that undead can potentially be beaten by flanks and their LIA still suffer LOC damage. However, any wise undead player can completely nullify this weakness by bringing the maximum units possible and using the proper tactics to prevent them from being flanked. In other words, the true problem is, the only real weakness undead have can be avoided by them by simply by bringing the maximum units possible and playing well. And the tactics required to beat an undead are way more difficult than the tactics required for an undead to beat anyone else.

By the way, lowering the impact of gear on undead would not fix this problem, and in fact would simply ruin undead who actually like using gear and make them horrible in PvE. Kind of like raising LOC damage without changing the LI themselves. So please don't reduce impact of equipment for undead. It will only encourage bringing hordes of LI even more, which really is the whole problem to begin with.

RuneSlayer wrote:

Ala wrote:

Unfortunately those simulations fail.

They made simulations ages ago with sample size of 100 000 or something like that.
Before the 2 or 3 UD nerf.
You know what they said after those simulations? "Everything is balanced"
Then the nerfs came.
Simulations didn't include tactics I guess, or they didn't count with the players knowing better what stats are important for a certain unit. And they didn't include the non-tactics either (like the li-ball stupidity).
And who knows what else. So simulations aren't enough I guess.

In order to prevent false rumors from spreading and giving the wrong idea about things, I would suggest people to know exactly what they say before they post something, otherwise their posts will lose weight in time.

The simulations were 100% accurate. They were comparing each unit and race with the initial stats and the stat caps.

It is not possible to simulate players' behaviors and various items and chances of special abilities being triggered. This is no rock-paper-scissors.

Therefore, there will always be someone who will say that this unit is OP or that that unit needs to be nerfed.

The community expresses its concerns and opinions and then we go ahead and check to see whether there is a valid reason behind a concern or not. It is amazing how people believe (and even mentioned it in Global Chat) that I can be "dragged" to changing something according to what the majority wants. The fact that I decided to intervene in the conversation regarding the Undead after 7 pages...only proves that I read all posts very carefully, checked the issue myself and found that "something" had to change in order to balance things out.

As I mentioned in another post, not all the people will be happy with changes that occur in BC. Granted, as a player, I'd prefer to go back to the time when Gold was flowing and I had no problem repairing items, upgrading buildings, researching technologies and piling up Gold so I can have my evening bath in it... Yes, as a player, I would react to that change because YOU, the devs, are making my life a bit more difficult and I need to put more effort and think more than I used to in order to progress in the game... Thing is... My job is not to keep everyone happy, but to strive for the balance in the economy and battle mechanics and to make BC the game we want it to be... I will listen to you, I will respect your opinions, sometimes I will agree, sometimes I will disagree, but in the end...it is my call...as it is your call whether you will continue following the development of this game and the next one coming up... Sometimes some changes will bring more changes...but that's how it is...a never ending struggle to balance things out...unless of course you want me to turn BC to a boring, casual game...

I am sorry..but this will never happen.

I DID know what I was saying. I said there were simulations and they can't be good enough to cover everything. So demanding simulations won't solve all of our problems.
And you DID say it was balanced, I am not a moron.
And I said similar thing you said. I mean, compare the 2 sentences:

1.Mine: "Simulations didn't include tactics I guess, or they didn't count with the players knowing better what stats are important for a certain unit. And they didn't include the non-tactics either (like the li-ball stupidity)."
2. Yours:"It is not possible to simulate players' behaviors and various items and chances of special abilities being triggered"

Yes, simulations didn't cover the phase between base unit and capped unit. And? Did I say they did?

Btw please note I am not against simulations, I courage doing simulations, I just say they won't solve many problems. But they could solve some. Still.

And the majority wanted to nerf the UD LI. Well, I guess you didn't meet UD LI-ball after the wrong-nerf. You didn't solve the main problem for sure.

But why I am even arguing here, I guess it doesn't really matter.

Clambam about dwarf and Undead LIA I fail to find your reasoning behind why dwarf LIA are better than Undead LIA. When you bring stats into it you are only hurting yourself. Undead LIA hit faster than dwarf LIA. Undead LIA have five more troops like you said and have faster speed. The +10 morale for any race's LIA is just about useless since they rely on Unbreakable but no one like's getting shiver. The LOC doesn't ever happen to Undead if they prevent flanking which should be easy. Your one example of a battle with 5 HI holding against the enemies units and your LIA flanking is nothing. They obviously didn't play good tactics and threw all their units at your HI while they should have sent their infantry against your LIA. Those kinds of tactics are good for all races and doesn't make dwarf LIA any better than other LIA. Plus you said that flanking is more effective with dwarf LIA when you are completely wrong. When you flank with any unit in the game it all takes away the same percentage of morale. Although UD with their 25 units get a decrease in the morale taken away. So all in all I still fail to see your reasoning why dwarf LIA are better when Undead LIA have both better reaction and better speed. Something that most people use LIA for.

I had several PVPs with several Undead players the last 5 days and I have only one thing to say...

I feel for all the players that faced Undead in PVP...

Seems...impossible to beat them...

I am working on two solutions, which require further testing:

1. Increase AP proportionally to the number of troops in a unit. For example, if a LI unit has 20 troops and avg AP among the races is 50, then an UD LI should be around 62. Same for HI, which should not be 145, but rather 195. In all the encounters I had, the Undead players had more units than I had (played with several races against them and most of the times I was facing almost twice the number of units I brought in battle) and not necessarily with inferior gear. An increase in the AP of the Undead units should compensate for the 5 more troops that they have (they come in numbers!!). These 5 additional troops, compared to the other races and considering the fact that with 1-2 items or 1-2 levels their initial stats are almost identical to the other races, are a big PLUS as it increases their longevity and their MOBA (Morale in Battle) due to lower loss of Morale/casualty...

2. Go back to 1-3 LOC damage, instead of 2-3, BUT increase the MOBA loss per casualty by a % to compensate for their additional troops and the MOBA effect due to numbers.

The 2nd solution has worked quite nice so far, after I've done maybe 10 battles, though I believe that the combination of 1 and 2 should be the winner.

I am not confident about the results yet, but what I like is that solution 1 will not decrease the effectiveness of the UD units, just the number of units they can bring in a battle, and 2 is decreasing the "punishment" (LOC) BUT increases the need of UD players to play more tactically and protect their units to prevent rapid MOBA loss which could lead to LOC. (Yes, the "ball" formation is used by many...)

When I am done with the UD tweak, I want to get back to the ranged units... The battle is too fast for a ranged unit to really make a statement, due to its low "firepower", so players don't use them a lot. I want to increase their effectiveness in battle, without necessarily increasing their lethality... Same goes for the artillery units...

RuneSlayer wrote:

I had several PVPs with several Undead players the last 5 days

Great news to hear the developers are playing their own game

... probably way more fun than swatting those bugs¹

---

¹Or reading whining posts

Pearl wrote:

RuneSlayer wrote:

I had several PVPs with several Undead players the last 5 days

Great news to hear the developers are playing their own game

... probably way more fun than swatting those bugs¹  

---

¹Or reading whining posts

I'm glad you think this is a whining post Pearl because as I see it you never pvp. As Runeslayer has pointed out it's a difficult, tiring, and aggravating experience to pvp skellies. Not impossible to win but more possible to beat other races.

Pearl wrote:

Great news to hear the developers are playing their own game Basketball

You'd be very surprised Ruach...

Scaren wrote:

I'm glad you think this is a whining post Pearl because as I see it you never pvp. As Runeslayer has pointed out it's a difficult, tiring, and aggravating experience to pvp skellies. Not impossible to win but more possible to beat other races.

This has been a very constructive post in general, Scaren. Especially Bobba & you. You have made your points clearly & have helped the developers look into an important issue & improve the game. Thanks

My comment was not referring to this post, but to the one it linked to: reading whining posts. It my silly ironic sense of humor --- Sorry for the confusion.

As for not PvP'ing:

• True, I have probably done 20 PvP game total on both servers -- since I lose 90% against skeletons, I decided was not fun
  
• Since I don't PvP much ... I have not contributed much to this thread;
  
• Mostly though, I am waiting for presets before I do a lot of PvP.
  
• Also waiting for the release of PvP AI, and then will make some more suggestions to improve PvP, after experimenting with the changes the developers have made.

I think once PvP works really well, this game will be even more fun than it already is & I'm looking forward to that

Ah that's my mistake then. Sorry about that. I hadn't realized it was a link. I thought it was referring to this thread.

RuneSlayer wrote:

1. Increase AP proportionally to the number of troops in a unit. For example, if a LI unit has 20 troops and avg AP among the races is 50, then an UD LI should be around 62. Same for HI, which should not be 145, but rather 195. In all the encounters I had, the Undead players had more units than I had (played with several races against them and most of the times I was facing almost twice the number of units I brought in battle) and not necessarily with inferior gear. An increase in the AP of the Undead units should compensate for the 5 more troops that they have (they come in numbers!!). These 5 additional troops, compared to the other races and considering the fact that with 1-2 items or 1-2 levels their initial stats are almost identical to the other races, are a big PLUS as it increases their longevity and their MOBA (Morale in Battle) due to lower loss of Morale/casualty...

This AP increase seems rather excessive. Especially the number you have in mind for UD HI. And combining 2 nerfs with each other without seeing what one on its own can do, seems really dangerous.
We all agreed on ud li's opness. So please start with nerfing ud LI by raising its starting AP to 60, which already is an increase by 33.3%.

Claudandus wrote:

RuneSlayer wrote:

1. Increase AP proportionally to the number of troops in a unit. For example, if a LI unit has 20 troops and avg AP among the races is 50, then an UD LI should be around 62. Same for HI, which should not be 145, but rather 195. In all the encounters I had, the Undead players had more units than I had (played with several races against them and most of the times I was facing almost twice the number of units I brought in battle) and not necessarily with inferior gear. An increase in the AP of the Undead units should compensate for the 5 more troops that they have (they come in numbers!!). These 5 additional troops, compared to the other races and considering the fact that with 1-2 items or 1-2 levels their initial stats are almost identical to the other races, are a big PLUS as it increases their longevity and their MOBA (Morale in Battle) due to lower loss of Morale/casualty...

This AP increase seems rather excessive. Especially the number you have in mind for UD HI. And combining 2 nerfs with each other without seeing what one on its own can do, seems really dangerous.
We all agreed on ud li's opness. So please start with nerfing ud LI by raising its starting AP to 60, which already is an increase by 33.3%.

I trust the devs with their own game and I think they make good decisions most of the time. I don't want to weigh in much on how they fix the problem I just want it fixed.

They tend to overnerf things, Scaren. They do a good job, but first they overnerf things. We want to prevent this.
Why not nerf UD LI first, and if it's not good enough, continue nerfing? (well what is considered good enough, I guess there are some who don't want a balance here but an overnerf)

I don't want UD to be OP, and I don't want UD to be UP myself.