various things that need to be changed, many topics covered

This is a number of things I have noticed that need to be tweaked/changed/added/removed/etc.
While I have numbered them, these numbers serve no purpose to compare importance between topics, they are just a method of organization and reference.
Each point has a summary first sentence, and the rest explains why/how. So, if you don't want a wall of text issue, just read the first line of each point for the cliff notes.

1)Low level items are too cost prohibitive for the wealth of the player they are geared toward.
Each item takes 3 (or 5 for a hero) items to craft, which honestly isn't a problem. But it also takes 300-700 to craft (weapons to artifacts). This is for commons, for uncommons 450+ and rare 850+. Then on top of this, the repair costs (about every 20 matches) are 100-300 for commons, more for unc+. I have no issue with the higher items requiring a respectable amount of upkeep to maintain, that's part of the quality curve. But as it stands, the lower quality items are too expensive for lower level people--keeping more than 1 or 2 units with 2+ common items pretty much ensures 0 net-growth for gold until you've got a 7+ gold mint! I know, I made this mistake, and I was stymied for a whole day because of it. I recommend a significant drop to crafting/repair costs of common items (like, to the tune of 50%), and a moderate reduction for uncommons (say 25%) so that low level players can experiment with equipment, and enjoy that aspect of the game. Else, common fragments are rather worthless. The people that want them cant afford them, the people that can afford them, don't want them!

2)Remove all of the "reduced time" benefits and replace them with "reduced cost" instead.
Never have I cared about upgrading a building 5% faster, but I would LOVE to have that 5% reduced cost instead! (Its the difference between waiting 10 hours to save for the building, and taking 95 minutes to build, or taking 9hour 30 minutes to save, and 100 minutes to build, who cares about that 5 minutes?) The exceptions to this are for unit healing times, those costs seem well balanced *Gives cookies* and that is a situation where -everyone- is waiting to do that again.

3)Longer time for production buildings to fill up their storage amount. The magic time we're looking for here is 8 hours, but 6 hours is acceptable. An active player can collect before sleeping, wake up and collect again with coffee, then once more when he gets home from work. Still requires 3 log-ins per day, so players have to be active, just not glued to the screen. Perhaps a research branch that increases the storage ability of production buildings. 5% increase is like another 15 minutes between collections, enough improvements like that and it would eventually get to that 6 or 8 hour mark.

4)Rebalancing of racial abilities.
Where did the dwarf 5% gold go? That was a noticeable little tweak, and not unbalanced (humans get that for 3 things!) Also, the 'slight chance for better results' is a bit of an invisible bonus, we never know if it made the difference. Also with the rarity of quality mats, most people don't like to gamble with a 30-40% chance of 'wasting' the 2 higher fragments. There have been a number of suggestions of what to replace this with, you don't need more ideas for this subject.
Elves:reduced time of research changed to reduced cost (as per above) Also, needs something that turns into at end-game, when research is done. (or something on the research tree that can be continually researched, say "improved armor" which you can keep picking repetatively that gives +x amount to armor for all units, have this for each key stat). This would mean even capped-out top players have something to research (and a resource sink!)
Orcs:change reduced building time into reduced building cost, as per above. Also needs something so they still have a worthwhile racial once all the buildings are maxxed!
Legion:I don't think i've ever had an issue with running out of command points, between the length of combats + healing times + the few minutes waiting in a queue, it seems like they refresh as often as they're used. If this ability is intended to draw people that play for long long periods of time, perhaps change it to a faster recovery of command points. (Effectively letting legion play continuously if they so desire)

5)Rebalance the issues of 'quality over quantity' so there is more an emphasis on quality (anyone can field 6 units with an 8 barracks, but can they field 8 quality, experienced and geared units?!) in terms of AP cost. This would also cut down on battle field clutter in coop/pvp matches (every have 3 people all bring 5+ units? it gets clunky and crowded.... now imagine 3 people with 10 units each) and make the expensive equipment more beneficial. (so the prices are worth paying!) While leveling seems AP-efficient, many items don't seem to be. (I've almost doubled the AP of a unit with items, but don't get a 'twice as strong' feeling for them) Its harder to have 1 geared/leveled unit on the field, than 2 naked recruits. This should be reflected in the unit's abilities. (elsewise, why bother making units better, if more, weaker ones are just as effective?)

6)Make conquest points increase/scale with the AP size of units in combat. If sending 100 ap and winning earns 2 CP, sending 400ap armies should earn 8 CP, make having a more impressive army actually... more impressive! This would give an incentive to having things like heavy infantry/cavalry/etc instead of just sending in the same 3 LI 2 archers for matches like a lot of people.

7)Coop battles need some kind of tweak somehow. I'm not sure of what, just that there's a problem. The problem? People joining and crashing out (so they don't do anything, but still have their AP calculated for the enemy size!) or just ... strategically inept people that literally charge up the center and die without causing any noticeable damage on the enemy. It is -SO- frustrating joining a match and managing to hold off 2x your AP amount, but still losing because your 'ally' joined with twice your AP and then proceeded to suck royally. I understand this is supposed to be part of the risk of COOP. But the amount of penalty for good players getting stuck with a bad one is very disheartening.

8)Ability to coop with SPECIFIC PEOPLE! Perhaps guildmates? This would fix the above issue, and allow really interesting cross-racial strategies (Hey, I'm an elf with awesome archers, but my dwarf friend has awesome heavy infantry... lets work together!)

9)Timestamps in guild chat. "nuff said

10)Default chat to the last selected chat window. I would prefer it to default to the window I was last in, but even changing it to a hierarchy of guild > faction (so if you have a guild, you revert back to that, if not, then to faction chat) So to prevent the issues of commenting on strategy in global chat, as well as promote inter-faction communication.

11)Slight tweak to units based on race (yeah... everyone wants their units stronger... It's not quite like that here, I promise!)
Dwarf and elf LI abilities need to be reversed. Dwarves get the damage soak (they're dwarves... its the flavor of their race to be hard to kill) and Elves get orc hatred (who hate orcs just as much as dwarves do... or more so, since it's goblins that dwarves tend to hate in most lores. I apologize for the geek-critique)
Dwarven Heavy infantry should also have the same speed as dwarven light infantry. In almost all lore, dwarves are hearty and, whilst naturally slow, unencumbered by heavy armor. Light infantry would still have use due to its low AP cost (half that of heavies) Having a special effect for artillery would be nice too.

12)cav/artillery heroes! Have SPECIAL heroes (unlocked with a higher monument) that can only be assigned to cavalry and artillery units! These could have specific benefits to them (faster movement/fire rate/range/etc/etc that would be most useful to their connected units)

13)Keep talking with the players! (you've already done this, just a reminder to never stop!) So many games die because the devs want 1 thing, and the players want another. (I highly recommend all your devs play the game, if you don't want to play the game and its not fun for you, will it be fun for others?) I thank you for doing this already, it shows care and love =D *hands you brownies*

Addendum:
14) TRADE CHAT!
Global is always filled with people making trades, this would cut down on that.

14B)Market changes
Also, a way to directly trade things with other people. Or the OPTION to have items on the market be only available to one faction. (I don't mind selling to a darky.... but they'll have to pay me extra for it!) Perhaps this could be opened by upgrading the market? (which, as of current, there is no benefit for, other than being a requirement for research) Perhaps allow more specific searches with a higher level market (search for specific fragments, or only uncommon or higher, etc, etc) Also, having a 1 hour 4 hour 12 hour auction option would be nice. For when you put something up for someone at a specific price, but if they don't take it it just comes down automatically. (again, perhaps opened with higher level market) I'm harping on the various differences coming with levels of market, because as it stands right now, there's not benefit to leveling it (that I'm aware of anyway)

15)Glitchy turns around obstacles
There seems to be a recently added issue with pathing when going around obstacles. I've had units get stuck in seemingly endless whirlpool of turning around and around when I ask them to attack an archer unit around the corner. This is really painful, as they archers just sit there and tear into them while they do their suicidal pirouettes.



Signed,
Athose Immortious Aeternia
Dwarven Champion of the Light
Respected member of the Average Guild (don't let our name deceive you!)

Some good points here. I particularly agree with point 6 (see my post http://www.battleconforum.com/t217-scaling-the-contribution-to-war-effort). I think you've made a better job of describing the issue than I have.

I also think points 7,9,10, 12 and 15 are significant in that they would improve the gameplay experience enormously and, with the possible exception of 7 and 15, seem to me as a lay-person, fairly straightforward to implement.

Mostly good feedback from a newer player.

I personally thought the same way you did on several of these points when I started and you may be able to find some posts from me to support that. That said, the balance of several of these points shifts as you progress. Does that mean that tweaks are needed to the new player experience? Maybe, and the devs have made improvements to several of the areas you bring up. A lot of the things youre asking to remove do have value though, so I want to share that perspective. Details below.

About low level item costs and fragments:

• I am quite an active player, but I dont remember a lvl 7+ gold smelter taking me more than a couple days to reach - if that. The devs also increased the resource gains from production buildings and resource rewards from combat since then. How quickly do you suggest that new players outgrow common items or reach lvl 7/10 production buildings?
  
• I do agree that low lvl fragments feel a bit useless, but I think its because people progress beyond them so quickly. I could see the value of converting a number of low quality fragments into a single higher quality fragment and vice versa to create a more fluid economy for the items. It might even be a dwarven specialty to convert these fragments at better rates or at a shorter cooldown.

About reduced time vs reduced cost:

I actually thought the same as you, but now that I have ranked up a bit more, time is my limiting factor, not resources. It does take about 2-3 weeks to get to where I am with active play, so your point is not invalid, but time reductions are not as useless as you claim. My researches/buildings are on the order of days now. Ask Yan about his times - iirc, his buildings are closer 3-4 days each and I'd guess his research is around that too.

As a solution, I personally wouldnt mind seeing more choice on this matter. The idea of mutually exclusive talents has been discussed quite a bit to create ways for players to personalize their growth with meaningful choices. For more active players or players using gems, time reduction talents would be more attractive. For newer players or more casual players, cost reductions would be appealing. You could choose one talent or the other and change them with limitations/costs.

About longer storage for production buildings:

The devs just increased the storage in the collection buildings in the last 3-4 days. This is a f2p game, and the devs have done an excellent job of shunning the possibility of paying for power. I want to see them continue to do that, but that does mean they need avenues of monetizing convenience and aesthetics. One of their big convenience items is auto collection.

Right now, my lvl 10-12 resource bldgs give me just over 4.5 hrs of collection. I'm okay with the idea that people who pay for autocollection get ~4-5 hours of extra collection per day. A lot of my resource income comes from battles anyway.

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Also, needs something that turns into at end-game, when research is done. (or something on the research tree that can be continually researched, say "improved armor" which you can keep picking repetatively that gives +x amount to armor for all units, have this for each key stat). This would mean even capped-out top players have something to research (and a resource sink!)

This would be a very bad idea. It would mean a perpetual power creep and a growing rift between a new player and veteran players. It gives way too big of an advantage to older players (speaking as a player who started on the day of the public launch of the game). It would make balancing content a nightmare and it would trivialize the game. This is very bad game design.

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5)Rebalance the issues of 'quality over quantity' so there is more an emphasis on quality in terms of AP cost.

I dont have a problem with massive battles - in fact I want to see them sometimes. Understanding when to use small armies vs large armies is a good skill to have and I would like to see more situations that call for more variation in army size.

I agree that AP numbers need to be looked at - but I dont think it is more pressing than several other major game systems that are in the pipeline.

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6)Make conquest points increase/scale with the AP size of units in combat.

I agree that the CP values are too small right now to reward properly. If base CP earnings were multiplied by 10 and CP containers were multipled by 10x, there would be a lot more wiggle room.

That said, I also dont think that they want the top players to single-handedly control the flow of the map. They want to encourage social play. I agree it needs tweaks, but a straight 1:1 growth of CP to AP would swing power to the top players more. It needs limitations. The math to do all this isnt difficult, but it needs more wiggle room to make sense as whole numbers on the board - hence the 10x multiplier suggestion.

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11)Slight tweak to units based on race (yeah... everyone wants their units stronger... It's not quite like that here, I promise!)
Dwarf and elf LI abilities need to be reversed. Dwarves get the damage soak (they're dwarves... its the flavor of their race to be hard to kill) and Elves get orc hatred (who hate orcs just as much as dwarves do... or more so, since it's goblins that dwarves tend to hate in most lores. I apologize for the geek-critique)

Do dwarves train parrots? Thats not a slight tweak, thats revamping two units and asking for complete rebalancing of the numbers associated.

Dwarven heavies have a very defensive passive, while most other races have an offensive one. (I promise!)

Your sense of lore may not be the same lore that this game is following. Changing balance because you personally dont think something fits lore doesnt make sense.

Dwarves do have a need for a faster archetype unit that can flank. That is a core need that is missing from their toolbox. Their heavies moving at 12-13 isnt a bad idea and doesnt throw off the balance of ranged units countering heavies, but it also doesnt solve that core problem.

DWARF STUFF! Few comments first.

I've noticed a funny thing when you craft, the cost is proportional to the fragments value, so if you make an Uncommon out of two commons and one uncommon, then the uncommon will have lower value. If you make an uncommon out of 2 rares and one uncommon, it will have much higher value, and its repair cost will reflect this.
(At least, thats my theory since i've had identical items with drastically different repair costs, and i did mix fragments)

Some things are done for lore, and some things are done for balance. WE just need to accept that in Battle Conquest, elves are as physically strong as Orcs and Dwarvs. Some things are sillier than others, like elven chariots have equal strength to the iron fortress, well goblin war wagons actually have higher health, sure they are trying to keep it balanced but a tank with less health than a goblin on a wagon is silly.

The idea of fast moving heavies is more for lore than balance, while it arguably makes them 'better', their ROLE is mostly as a defender, a physical wall, since even at 13 most enemies can escape. They stand in front of ranged units forcing the enemy into engagement. Also ignore Hegorn, almost ALL heavies have defensive passivies (only orcs dont) since Fear lowers an enemies melee attack, making it drastically harder to hit them (a common ability for tanks in mmos)

Hopefully that will change since half the heavies share this same passive.

Its not parroting, anyone can see its common sense, i wouldnt reverse them though since Orc Hatred is bad anyways.

Flanking units are not 'needed' per se, its a team game after all. The Dwarven way would be to slow enemies, like i suggested that dwarf LI get some limited range gap closer, a passive to compensates for stats as the elves get. Again, putting a gun on the Iron Fortress, giving it range to compensate for its speed, it increases its 'effective radius' in a different way than speed does, without replacing Gunners or Heavies.

Dont worry Athos, at least we'll always be the most handsome race.

About fear - it is an offensive debuff applied to enemies that lowers their melee skill. That has both offensive and defensive effects. Fear seems to have some sort of internal cooldown. It can also be countered by morale.

Dwarven Heavies increase their armor by 20 to 50. I understand it to be a passive that is always on. Please correct me if I'm wrong on this.

No its correct, but -30 melee to an enemy is still a defensive thing, think of it as an aura. Except it doesnt work against missile units. The only real 'offensive' passive is the Bonecrushers who sacrifice Armor for bonus Strength, so by comparison i consider Fear to be defensive, it prolongs your life.

Although some people are saying that your chance to hit is based on melee vs melee so -30 melee to the enemy could also weaken their defenses and make fear damn effective.

But it also increases your moral reduction !

I did not notice there was an auto-collect premium feature. Therefore I do retract the point about increasing storage times. I very much dislike things that pay for power, but I have no problems paying for convenience.

Fear is a defensive spell. Yes, it is cast on another unit, but the result is the casting unit's survivability increasing. Think about a spell that increases my own units' attack, that is offensive. The same is said for an effect that reduces my enemies' defense/endurance (like dwarf archers), both are offensive. Look at the resulting effect, not the target of the spell.

Dwarven Heavies get an end-cap of +20 to their armor, not 50.

If developers want to ignore the massively accepted lore of races they shouldn't use those races! And they're already borrowing shamelessly (no, that isn't a bad thing) from the already established lore. Dwarves are slow and tanky, elves make good archers and are swiftfooted, undead aren't dangerous unless they're in large numbers, etc,etc,etc.

I had no idea that end-game construction was so slowly daunting, if it takes 3-4 days per single building to upgrade, that may be something that needs another look over.

There needs to be SOMETHING to be done with the top end research, or races with benefits to research speed effectively lose their racial once the tree is completed (even if it takes them months to get there)

Common equipments are worthless because of the reasons I stated; when you can afford them, you dont want them; when you want them, you can't afford them!
However, your idea of upgrading fragments to higher tier fragments is a good one. And I agree that a slightly tweaked dwarf racial in respect to this would be interesting if done properly.

I think having the ironforts with a short-ranged (30-40?) ranged attack would be interesting. I'm not sure on the balance of that though, it would have to be carefully done.


Increasing the overall number of CP per battle (by the factor of 10x) would probably give the necessary wiggle room for better balancing, but I'm still of the opinion that greater AP should give greater conquest points. It does not have to be linear though, perhaps more logrithmic. Loot should still be factored linearly for the AP invested in battle.

About Dwarves not having a fast unit:

I think that trying to balance a race around not having an option for speed has severe pitfalls.

I'm suggesting that the 5 "core archetypes" be accessible to all races through their units to make sure that they all have the tools to create armies that can handle any situation. How well each of those archetypes can handle different situations may vary from race to race.

Sure, you could make a race have 4 stronger archetypes to balance out its complete lack of 1 specific archetype. There are a few key problems with this balance strategy though:

• Firstly, it leads to skewed balance if all the other races are balanced around having 5 "required" archetypes and 1 race is balanced around using 4 "required" archetypes. Those 4 archetypes have to make up for the missing 1 archetype and would thusly be stronger.
  
• Extrapolate the concept more. What happens if you balance by having a race that has 3 extra strong archetypes and 2 that are non-existent? What about 2 even stronger archetypes because 3 are non-existent? If this race is balanced to handle all situations with only 2 archetypes, it becomes much easier to focus on those 2 types of units, progress those units, itemize for those units, and more importantly much easier to play those 2 units.
  
• So should the game be balanced so that the top BattleCon generals must have the skills to use all the same major archetypes? I personally think so.
  
• It limits what kind of battle scenarios the devs can implement because 1 race lacks a key tool to handle specific situations.

But this is a team based game! Other races will make up for what that 1 race lacks. The problem with this thinking:

• Consider the situation where Dwarves have 4 stronger archetypes to make up for the 1 they lack. They would immediately become the best race to take for any of those 4 archetypes when min-maxing army comps with multiple races. All the other races would be somewhat relegated to focusing on the archetypes that Dwarves lacked.
  
• If the 4 archetypes that Dwarves have are not good enough to make up for the 1 archetype they lack, then there are valid reasons to exclude Dwarves from min-maxed army comps with multiple races.
  
• This is unfair to the dark side because they dont have extra strong versions of those 4 archetypes.

Thats why I see dwarves not having access to a speedy unit as a fundamental balance issue. Overall, the devs need to decide on X number of archetypes that all races need to have in order to build armies that can accomplish any goal.

• Perhaps it is 3 archetypes (Infantry, Ranged, Cavalry).
  
• Perhaps it is 5 archetypes (LINF, HINF, Ranged, Cav, Arty).
  
• Those 3/5 units are a bit of a personal preference, but I think there is a long history of RTS games that have used those archetypes as the backbones of their balance and then built interesting mechanics from there.

The litmus test for balance -- if there were armies composed of only 1 archetype, each "archetype army" would have an equal number of different types of archetype armies that it destroyed easily as it had armies that destroyed it easily. Balancing these archetypes and balancing them based on AP would form the foundation for AP valuation that all other units could be based on.

Right now Dwarves are in the situation that an pure ranged army of 1:1 units (or AP) could absolutely destroy any army combination they built. Thats a glaring balance problem.

athose wrote:

Fear is a defensive spell. Yes, it is cast on another unit, but the result is the casting unit's survivability increasing. Think about a spell that increases my own units' attack, that is offensive. The same is said for an effect that reduces my enemies' defense/endurance (like dwarf archers), both are offensive. Look at the resulting effect, not the target of the spell.

Yea, I wont disagree that it has a defensive benefit. It also helps the heavy units kill their feared target faster because melee is both an offensive and defensive stat.

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Dwarven Heavies get an end-cap of +20 to their armor, not 50.

I meant +20 to 50. As in (Base of 30) + (Ability bonus of 20) = 50 total Armor. Sorry if that was confusing.

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There needs to be SOMETHING to be done with the top end research, or races with benefits to research speed effectively lose their racial once the tree is completed (even if it takes them months to get there)

I agree its not great that orcs/elves lose out on their racial passive, but all racials have their pluses and minuses. I wouldnt personally push it as a top priority to fix and I'd prefer to see a fix as a part of a more interesting game system like a talent tree with mutually exclusive talents.

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I think having the ironforts with a short-ranged (30-40?) ranged attack would be interesting. I'm not sure on the balance of that though, it would have to be carefully done.

Yea. That was the suggestion I made in another thread - though with less ranged than 40. It still doesnt solve the problem of speed for Dwarves.

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Increasing the overall number of CP per battle (by the factor of 10x) would probably give the necessary wiggle room for better balancing, but I'm still of the opinion that greater AP should give greater conquest points. It does not have to be linear though, perhaps more logrithmic. Loot should still be factored linearly for the AP invested in battle.

Yea, I wasnt discounting that more AP should give greater conquest rewards, but there should be limits. I completely agree with loot being on a more linear growth though.

Right now there are only two required archetypes, light and archers, this could change with introduction of new units, after that 60% of our army will be preference, so having good light/archer units might be the most important balance step as we are required to use them. Really hope sub-classes of these break out though !

As far as a pure ranged army, could they really defeat Siege weapons? One of the most common tactics is to get ranged damage, and defend it with troops, i cant imagine archers being better a choice for this, except maybe in the elves case as their archetype suits it, master archers and all.

I think its already unfair to the darkside, two of their heavies have Fear, and the humans heavy is the anti-fear making him more effective against heavies than any other heavy.

Anyways, right now i dont think any units are 'required' as far as PvE guys, everyone could just bring lights and archers and we'd win all day, upgrading to heavies probably makes it much more efficient.

When you say flanking do you refer to like, cavalry running around the side to strike vulnerable archers? Or the literal flank bonus from engaging in the side/rear ? I dont see the loss of a flanking cavalry as a reason to make our other archetypes better as you seem to be stating, if im reading that right. It sort of makes the cavalry a mid role between Gunner and Heavy.

Khor wrote:

Right now there are only two required archetypes, light and archers, this could change with introduction of new units, after that 60% of our army will be preference, so having good light/archer units might be the most important balance step as we are required to use them. Really hope sub-classes of these break out though !

The next units - orc slasher - was said to be a "light" unit that satisfied the 40% req.

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As far as a pure ranged army, could they really defeat Siege weapons? One of the most common tactics is to get ranged damage, and defend it with troops, i cant imagine archers being better a choice for this, except maybe in the elves case as their archetype suits it, master archers and all.

Right now I personally think siege weapons need a balance pass before they could be considered an archetype unit.

Its not really pressing because so few people have them or use them, but they dont do enough damage - usually due to very poor aim. I also dont see them as being a required archetype.

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Anyways, right now i dont think any units are 'required' as far as PvE guys, everyone could just bring lights and archers and we'd win all day, upgrading to heavies probably makes it much more efficient.

Yea, I wouldnt use the AI as the best measure of what counters what. In PvP, heavies will pretty easily walk through equivalent AP LINF armies. Ranged/Archers will easily defeat equivalent AP HINF armies. What is the hard counter to Ranged units that has a weakness to HINF? Traditional cav units.

Lights and Arty dont really fill this role. They can kinda do it, but its not a clear advantage. Moreover, good RTS gaming isnt just about what your units can do, its about what they can threaten to do. It forces players to think ahead, anticipate what may happen, and make judgement calls to counter those actions. If dwarves cannot threaten to flank, then it makes them very predictable.

Does this mean dwarves need traditional cav to do the job? No, but the key attribute of traditional cav units that allows them to counter ranged units is speed.

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When you say flanking do you refer to like, cavalry running around the side to strike vulnerable archers? Or the literal flank bonus from engaging in the side/rear ? I dont see the loss of a flanking cavalry as a reason to make our other archetypes better as you seem to be stating, if im reading that right. It sort of makes the cavalry a mid role between Gunner and Heavy.

I should probably be more clear about that. I mean a unit with high mobility that can chase/flank with ease.

You dont see the loss of a fast unit as a problem that would require buffs for dwarves to be comparable to other races? I think I've heard you talk about arty making up for it among many other dwarven buffs. What happens if your arty is roughly as strong as every other race's arty - maybe with minor playstyle tweaks?

I'm certainly not against buffing dwarves - I just want to make sure that the buffs actually solve their problem instead of being "feel good" buffs.

I had the fanciful idea that siege could destroy obstacles, removing cover for the enemy. Would mean a lot of things.

I imagine arty as being extremely effective against Archers, the traditional role of destroying buildings has no place here it would seem.

The iron fortress, with a ranged weapon, sort of has a threat of its own. Cavalry you can see flanking and even if their fast you can move a unit in the way to lock them up, or focus on them for a little bit. But the iron fortress seems more like a bulldozer, dictating the enemies movement, they've gotta stay out of its way. But its so similar to Heavy's right now that, they could do the same thing maybe. What worries me more is that the stat caps on all units are the same, this is a huge issue for a squad of one as opposed to a squad of four, receiving four times the benefits. Its late though, i should do this kind of stuff when im more awake XD

I think the 'dwarven berserkers' might be quicker than the average dwarf, heck we might even get a unique unit hat acts as a cavalry.

The dwarf speed is more than just not being able to flank, it's not being able to kill a routing unit. The other races can keep pace with a fleeing unit, meaning they can keep hitting it while it runs, or if it ever turns to fight again it is immediately flanked by the pursuer--IE--sent running again. Dwarves being slower means that when they rout an archer unit, they end up taking 2-3 more volleys as they chase it across the entire map. During which time, they're NOT able to turn around and flank with another ally.

I'm not complaining, honestly I'm not. Dwarves are slow, that's part of their schtick. But if they're 15% slower, they should also be 15% tanky-er, just compensation there.

Great posts..great posts indeed. I like the way you are thinking... In many things, you have already answered yourselves.

A few things:

1) It has already been decided that the Movement of the Warsmiths will change to 13, which is the movement of the Ironsmiths. We too believe that the heavier armor that the Heavy Infantry of Dwarves is using, shouldn't really be a problem for them.

2) I wouldn't compare the Ironfort with the Goblin Chariot and suggest that they are equal. They are FAR from equal, in terms of endurance and armor. The Goblin Chariot has 35 Strength, 40 Endurance and 35 Armor, while the Ironfort has 40 Strength, 60 Endurance and 60 Armor plus Fear as special ability. The Ironfort WILL sustain SIGNIFICANT punishment. However, I do understand the need to better "clarify" its role in the Dwarven army, as it is basically another slow Heavy Infantry. I don't know if giving it a gun (cannon), as this will make it a NIGHTMARE on the battlefield, but we could perhaps assume that it has 4-5 Dwarves inside it with guns, giving it some ranged attack capabilities.

3) Artillery is NOT weak and definitely not harmless. Depending on how you use it, it can inflict heavy casualties to the enemy. While dark artillery can fire without LOS, with significantly lower to hit probability and with catastrophic results, due to its random hit area (it could hit your own units or an ally's), light artillery needs LOS BUT the to hit probability is almost (key word here is...almost) 100%. With 80+ Strength per hit, with multiple damage per hit (1d6 or 1d10 if I remember correctly) and with a hit area (column defined for the cannons), it can wreck havoc on the battlefield. Especially when special units and "special buildings on the battlefield" will be introduced, they are going to be their worst nightmare.

4) I won't disagree with the APs of units, items, etc. We should make some changes today. For example, Heavy Infantries will be almost 2.8 the value of a Light Infantry.

5) I believe that in order to create a game which provides hundreds and hundreds of synergies, you need to provide the necessary tools for that. However, the issue of balancing everything out is always a very important element of the designing. Whoever says that a complicated system which involves different stats and tens of variables is 100% balanced, is simply lying. For example, it is possible that in 1000 battles/simulations a specific type of unit of a race against the same type of another race could achieve a victory at about a 45% rate (45% wins - 55% defeats). (Btw Dwarfs kick *** in our simulations...) Is that imbalanced? I don't believe so, because in PvP players don't just rush forwards to start an engagement and the simulation was ran under the consideration that the units were clashing 1 vs 1. No flanking, no items, nothing else... However, on the battlefield, and under real conditions, a player can do things a lot differently and gain the advantage over his opponent. It's a matter of tactics.

6) Guilds will have the ability to CO-OP with Guild Members only.

7) CPs vary according to the number of units you send to a region. It is true that if you send 5 LIs at one time and then send 3 LIs and 2 HIs, you will still get the same CPs, but we are not "punishing" the players in any way, as they WILL gain more loot if they bring higher level units. Then again, think about it..You want to control a region and you send 5 LIs...You destroy the army so your Faction gains the advantage at that point. Then the same day, you march with 5 HIs and destroy an enemy army with higher value units, but with about the same number of units like yours. Why would that victory count as grander? Yes, you will receive more loot, as the enemy is of a higher value, but the advantage (Conquest Points) won for your Faction is about the same.

We have said it a million times. Timestamps, pms, trade channel and other things will be added when the new GUI is introduced. Right now, we are working on bugs and of course the Guild Warfare feature.

9) Pathfinding is not optimum yet. Still experiencing a few problems, so we are still working on it.

10) The AH can be SIGNIFICANTLY improved, but it is a matter of priorities right now. We prefer to see Guilds fighting with each other for Regional Control first and then the rest. We assume you want the same as well.

Does this mean that dwarves will have the fastest heavy infantry?

Fastest when compared to other Heavy Infantries, yes. Fast? I don't think so.

I don't see how that makes sense but I suppose once everyone has cavalry it will balance out.

Dwarves are the slowest of all the races, because they have short feet. However, they are strong and their endurance is well known, so wearing heavy armor doesn't really affect them.

Dwarven HINF having 13 speed doesnt fundamentally change their role on the battlefield. They are the same archetype and the same tactics you would use against them or with them have not changed.

They are still easily counterable by ranged units. Your LINF will be able to choose when to engage them. The movement does however give them more flavor and it makes them better at what they do.

It does turn the Dwarven Heavies into quite a force to contend with.

Yeah that's the part that doesn't make sense ;D heavy armor hinders movement and dwarves already aren't all that swift. I get that they need a little boost in movement but what would make more sense to me is if dwarf heavy infantry would be replaced with some other unit (mostly art work though.) I know I'm being picky but since they already have mithril armor skill they shouldn't look all geared up. The part that dwarf heavy infantry is carrying a car's worth of metal on him is what defies logic to me. Isn't mirthril armor supposed to have the consistency of cloth?

Thanks for the look into the future changes.

RuneSlayer wrote:

2) I wouldn't compare the Ironfort with the Goblin Chariot and suggest that they are equal. They are FAR from equal, in terms of endurance and armor. The Goblin Chariot has 35 Strength, 40 Endurance and 35 Armor, while the Ironfort has 40 Strength, 60 Endurance and 60 Armor plus Fear as special ability. The Ironfort WILL sustain SIGNIFICANT punishment. However, I do understand the need to better "clarify" its role in the Dwarven army, as it is basically another slow Heavy Infantry. I don't know if giving it a gun (cannon), as this will make it a NIGHTMARE on the battlefield, but we could perhaps assume that it has 4-5 Dwarves inside it with guns, giving it some ranged attack capabilities.

A nightmare is right if it had enough range to counter typical archers. That would remove the big counter to it. I think giving it more than very minimal range (<15-25) would allow it to completely obsolete other units in the dwarven army (Gunners). Something along the lines of flame throwers was what I was thinking.

Overall, the idea of a single unit being able to do both melee and ranged attacks would be a good addition to the game (low priority feature).

A few questions for you about Artillery:

Quote :

3) Artillery is NOT weak and definitely not harmless. Depending on how you use it, it can inflict heavy casualties to the enemy. While dark artillery can fire without LOS, with significantly lower to hit probability and with catastrophic results, due to its random hit area (it could hit your own units or an ally's), light artillery needs LOS BUT the to hit probability is almost (key word here is...almost) 100%. With 80+ Strength per hit, with multiple damage per hit (1d6 or 1d10 if I remember correctly) and with a hit area (column defined for the cannons), it can wreck havoc on the battlefield. Especially when special units and "special buildings on the battlefield" will be introduced, they are going to be their worst nightmare.

I do not have arty yet, so my experience with them is limited to them on the battlefield as opponents. Destructible bldgs does make arty more attractive and gives them a strong niche role on the battlefield. Really looking forward to special units too. Arty being a counter for them makes sense.

The reason why I said they were weak is because they dont seem to scale damage depending on what their target is. For instance, they seem to do equal damage to a fast moving, small unit like charging cavalry as they do to a tight formation of slow moving infantry.


• Are there intentions to have the hit chance of arty be affected by the speed of their target or the size of the target?
  
• Also, will we be able to target the ground with arty instead of only targeting units?

About LOS:

I do have a lot of skepticism about all light side races requiring LOS and all darkside races not requiring LOS. Thats one of those fundamental differences that can really skew balance.

Implications of one entire faction being able to use tactics that the other cannot (like turtling behind LOS) is pretty heavy. It allows some races the ability to only use 2 archetypes to be fully effective against 3-4 archetypes in PvP. A suggestion might be to give Dwarves a Mortar Arty (nonLOS) and to give one of the dark races an LOS arty.


• Can you explain how LOS might not not play such a strong role in arty tactics?
  
• What mechanisms are in the design to balance these LOS differences?
  
  Either way, I'm willing to try it out, but I am very skeptical about the balance implications.

Piktas wrote:

Yeah that's the part that doesn't make sense ;D heavy armor hinders movement and dwarves already aren't all that swift. I get that they need a little boost in movement but what would make more sense to me is if dwarf heavy infantry would be replaced with some other unit (mostly art work though.) I know I'm being picky but since they already have mithril armor skill they shouldn't look all geared up. The part that dwarf heavy infantry is carrying a car's worth of metal on him is what defies logic to me. Isn't mirthril armor supposed to have the consistency of cloth?

A little creative thinking can usually cause the lore to fit balance. In this case, Dwarven warsmiths are wearing Mithril Plate Armor with is a much lighter metal than the various steel alloys used by the other races. This isnt Mithril Chain Mail which might flow more like cloth.

Piktas wrote:

Yeah that's the part that doesn't make sense ;D heavy armor hinders movement and dwarves already aren't all that swift. I get that they need a little boost in movement but what would make more sense to me is if dwarf heavy infantry would be replaced with some other unit (mostly art work though.) I know I'm being picky but since they already have mithril armor skill they shouldn't look all geared up. The part that dwarf heavy infantry is carrying a car's worth of metal on him is what defies logic to me. Isn't mirthril armor supposed to have the consistency of cloth?

Exactly! Mithril armor is very light, therefore no hinderance to movement.

Then change the artwork