various things that need to be changed, many topics covered

AgentAAA wrote:

as for why I didn't consider the elves weak enough, that basically comes down to the fact that average isn't weak, it is just average. Undead archers are weak, weaker than average. this gets some pros to help balance that, like doing good vs high end targets. the undead LI are weaker than average and their weak stats make them more susceptible to higher infantry like HI's, which have a more decisive gap, but get a pro in that they will nonetheless survive the longest of any unit in an exchange, winning or losing, and that their gear stacks better. What weakness does the elven archers speed and missile skill account for?

What are you basing your sense of "average" on? I'm saying that no one can define "average" right now since we dont understand the stats properly.

It could be argued that Elven LINF's extra speed and extra morale dont play an effective role in combat (or are easily countered). If that is true, then they are really weaker than other LINF units. I could try to argue that Undead LINF have 5 extra units to kill and thus well geared undead LINF completely outscale all other LINF.

I wont try to argue that - I am just using it as an example of how there is no argument to be made for what is "average" for any unit type or ability. Everyone keeps quoting stat differences and they are overlooking the fact that there is no basis for comparison for almost all the stats.

This is also why I focus on counters as the main basis for discussing balance. I look at what is required for a player to adapt to X unit. Is that adaptation overly difficult, or inaccessible, or ineffective, or too costly AP wise? Inequities in these things can be discussed through ingame experiences - but we cannot use stat comparisons or "averages" for unit types.

Do you disagree with this?

About Elven archers - yes, they were given 4 tools that help them be strong ranged units that was justified as lore tweaks by the devs. That said, all of them can be completely countered or minimized by player choices and player skill - something that cannot be said about the advantages given to other races. I'll gladly explain how to counter Elven archers below.

Advantages:

• Elven archers have 5 more range than other long ranged archers (55 vs 60). It is 45 vs 60 when comparing against DLegion and Dwarves.
  
• They have 10 more missile skill than other archers. That combination certainly makes them do better than all other archers at the long ranges of 50-60. How much better isnt possible to determine right now.
  
• The movespeed does open the door to kiting slower units like HINFs and LINFs.
  
• They have improved reaction time by 1.

So how to mitigate these advantages?:

• Attack speed? -- This is probably the benefit that has the most resiliency to countering. But even this is mitigated if you can force the archers to try and kite. While kiting, the benefits of attackspeed are reduced or removed. All other racial abilities (except humans) retain their full effectiveness when kiting HINFs.
  
• Kiting? -- Outside of HINFs, it is a tactic of last resort that is easily countered by any unit that moves faster than 17 (like the Light assault archetype) There is a more in-depth post about it here: http://www.battleconforum.com/t94-archer-unit-vs-light-infantry-normal
  
• Extra range/missile skill? -- As units get closer in range, that advantage diminishes. Again, how much it diminishes is impossible to tell, but every other ranged unit gains more proportionate advantage for closing the gap than elves do.
  
• Missile and Range are easily itemized for. A green item will cover the missile skill gap, and white common items can cover the ranged gap (for 3 races). This itemization is quite accessible to players.
  
• Additionally, the long range can be very easily countered through player skill. In PvE, the AI doesnt know how to counter long range advantages well. In PvP it is very easy to shorten effective firing lanes down to the 20-40 range using proper LOS. This brings Elven archers well within the range of any other ranged unit in the game and effectively reduces their long range advantage. This tactic is seldom used by players. Everyone wants to use their ranged units at max range which does not play to their strengths at all.

Compare these player-counterable and unit-counterable advantages to other racial advantages - like well geared high unit sized Undead units, or the non-LOS reliant arty of the darkside? Or if Undead are unbreakable even when heavily flanked? What do players have in their toolboxes to counter those kinds of advantages?

To be fair, I'm not completely certain that larger undead units dont scale slightly differently than other sized units. Everything I have seen indicates that, but it is hard to detect that kind of statistical difference. The point remains that those kinds of advantages have no counter that players have control over. The Elven ones do.

The point with scaling on the undead I have heard of it. In fact I thought I would be like that in the start. They are weaker at the start but get better at the end with level and equipment as it affects more units at the same time.

However seeing how battle works Im not that sure. The soldiers fighting at a time are always the same so the stats the unit figths with seem to not depend on the size. So its why now for me it feels like it only gives you some lasting power due to the extra health of the total unit. What I dont like much. I would like it to have more effect and so making this race somewhat diferent.

And for the elf archers thing. I agree with you to some extent. Playing carefully you can nullify the range advantage (despite they stil get extra accurcy from it at lower ranges). But anyway when you compare you cant say that you can cover that equiping X item because enemy also can do that. You must assume that the equipment is the same for both.
But I accept that the higher the stats the less the differences may matter. Its not the same 40 vs 30 than 60 vs 50

Anyway with movement advantage you are only having in account the extreme cases where movement gives everything like kiting, chasing-retreating and talking like if outside does situations has no use (I may be not understanding you properly) but I still see movement as a tactical advantage outside those that must be taken into account when balancing.

By the way, another thing I forgot to mention. Undead have the weakest heroes and taht isnt countered in any other way either.
Anyway their main imapct to battle is morale-related more than been a force by themselves so I dont see it as much of a trouble.

Hegorn wrote:

• This is why I was for Dwarven heavies getting 13 speed. It is still player counterable (as long as movement itemization doesnt let them exceed most race's ranged movement speeds), but it does require a higher level of skill to accomplish - which makes sense for a lore bonus.
  
  
• This is why I was for Dwarves getting a high speed unit. So that they could counter archers and fleeing units that are faster than their current melee. It is a tool they need to do what all the other races can do - with similar costs/risks that all other races incur.
  
  
• This is why I was against Dwarven Ironforts getting a ranged attack anywhere close to 30 range. That would give them tools they needed - but without any of the risks when countering archers. The inequities in countering would have been large, and the inequities in player skill required to play the race become even bigger. Thats not fair.
  
  
• Undead wise, I think all the apparent weakneses are derived from a problem with their scaling. Early on they are bad, but they get a lot better with higher tier units and better gear.
  
  Is this a good thing? I dont think so. It means wherever the equilibrium point is, Undead are possibly spending more to maintain their gear. At any other point on the curve, undead will either feel too weak or too strong.
  
  Are there ways to change this without losing the flavor of undead? Definitely. Morale changes will buff them too, so I'd rather wait to form conclusions after those changes goes through.
  

I actually agree. My point regarding undead has never been they're underpowered, as much as they're underpowered without gear or levels, which balance them out. I wouldn't go so far as to say they're too strong, though, or at least they've never felt like they ever went past "about the same" in terms of overall strength. I'd say that one of the reasons I like undead is that even with the core you have odder strategies

- for instance, friendly fire's more beneficial for undead in that their passive gives LI's better protection against said fire, and as a result you have less chance of losing units, and undead archers are much better against high END targets such as heavy or light infantry, also making them good against the more END-heavy races who have high defense ability (I'm looking at youuu, dwarves)

their heavy infantry's somewhat typical, in that they do about what you'd expect HI's to do, and while I won't make a concrete judgement on their Cavalry yet, their passive makes me think they'll likely have a very good time taking out archer divisions and retreating units in less time than other groups, in order to make up for their lower health.

There's not much of a balance issue with undead in that late-game they function well, however, they also have a steeper learning curve in that early-game you will be losing a lot of troops, spending a lot of time healing, and requiring a large amount of strategy just to hope to beat a normal. they're fun, and I wouldn't have them any other way, but I also don't consider them newbie-friendly.

I try to discourage random buffs/nerfs without first trying to figure out what is causing an imbalance. A lot of people just call for nerfs/buffs to feel good, but they dont actually solve any balance problems. Thats not good design. Discussions like this thread help to drill down and figure out exactly what is causing imbalances.

If the devs want to keep differences due to lore, thats a good thing in my eyes. I like having an interesting metagame to adapt to. There are ways to work around that to find balance.

Jervaj wrote:

However seeing how battle works Im not that sure. The soldiers fighting at a time are always the same so the stats the unit figths with seem to not depend on the size. So its why now for me it feels like it only gives you some lasting power due to the extra health of the total unit. What I dont like much. I would like it to have more effect and so making this race somewhat diferent.

I agree. From everything I have seen, the extra unit size helps with defensive capability, but not offensive capabilities. The way I checked for how many "attacks" a unit has is to watch min/max numbers for how many kills I get in 1v1 situations. For archer units, I've seen numbers between 0-4. For LINF, its up to 5 kills per round. I'm not sure what it is for Undead's higher unit sizes, but I suspect its the same (5). If you find otherwise, please let us know?

The other thing I havent tested that one of you undead might be able to look into - When you are fighting multiple units, do each of those attacking units get 5 undead fighting it? From what I've seen, unless there is flanking, its up to 5 units per side - but I havent investigated this heavily.

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And for the elf archers thing. I agree with you to some extent. Playing carefully you can nullify the range advantage (despite they stil get extra accurcy from it at lower ranges). But anyway when you compare you cant say that you can cover that equiping X item because enemy also can do that. You must assume that the equipment is the same for both.

I was just pointing out that some advantages are easier to itemize for. Some stats we can see the raw effect on the battlefield (speed, range). Unit size is one of those advantages that no player can obtain.

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Anyway with movement advantage you are only having in account the extreme cases where movement gives everything like kiting, chasing-retreating and talking like if outside does situations has no use (I may be not understanding you properly) but I still see movement as a tactical advantage outside those that must be taken into account when balancing.

I agree, moving faster into positions is a benefit, but it doesnt cause all the "extra" benefits of faster movement that everyone complains about. My point is that most players dont have the tools to counter those "extra benefits" of having +2 speed. That is the root cause of why such a small stat increase feels so magnified. Until all players get those units, Elven speed will feel disproportionately strong.

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By the way, another thing I forgot to mention. Undead have the weakest heroes and taht isnt countered in any other way either.

Yea, those numbers are worth raising an eyebrow over - but since we dont know if its because of scaling issues with the extra undead unit size, we cant be sure if that is a legitimate weakness.

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I agree. From everything I have seen, the extra unit size helps with defensive capability, but not offensive capabilities. The way I checked for how many "attacks" a unit has is to watch min/max numbers for how many kills I get in 1v1 situations. For archer units, I've seen numbers between 0-4. For LINF, its up to 5 kills per round. I'm not sure what it is for Undead's higher unit sizes, but I suspect its the same (5). If you find otherwise, please let us know?

The other thing I havent tested that one of you undead might be able to look into - When you are fighting multiple units, do each of those attacking units get 5 undead fighting it? From what I've seen, unless there is flanking, its up to 5 units per side - but I havent investigated this heavily.

I think its the same for undead. I have checked soemtimes and I have never seen more fighters than 5 per enemy and another 5 if flanked. And never caused more than 5 deaths at a time (besides low strenght makethis very unlikely for undead xD). But I will pay close attention to both to ley you know if I notice something.

Lots of new topics... Thats not exactly how to counter 'elven' archers, just archers in general, or ones itemized to match elves. Countering ELVEN archers specifically would be something like aiming for the head or put garlic on your arrows. But seriously, does high reaction increase the animation speed ? Like if Crossbowmen and Elven Archers both target eachother at once, who fires first ?

The undead LI 25/25 scaling sounds a lot like the issue with the iron forts solo vs 4 scaling, just need to compare blank IF vs Nergals with geared ones and see how drastic the AP costs/effectiveness is.

I had a CRAZY idea for the iron fortress, DWARF crazy. But it FITS the lore and its been done before in RTS's... Give it a drill, and let it burrow underground ! Its effectively invisible to the enemy and can pass under troops (but not under obstacles) It would only last 30 seconds before it surfaces again, starting a 30 second cooldown before it can burrow again. It remains at 10 speed while underground. Burrowing would be audible.

The effects in PvE are it would be able to flank archers WITHOUT being intercepted by units, and 'could' flank other armies but since it ONLY comes up after 30 seconds, you wouldnt just burrow to crawl under them and pop back up or you're denying yourself a piece of army for too long.

In PvP since enemies can hear it burrow they'll know its around, given its 10 speed and duration, it wont go that far, predicting where it is heading could nullify it, just as not giving Cavalry an opening will leave them on the side lines waiting to strike. This sort of fills its role as a flanker. There are a lot of possabilities with that though and having extremely tank AND able to just go underground overlaps a bit, so could reduce some of the tanky stats.

Moving out of the way where you 'think' its heading pretty much nullifies that, and if you arnt going to reach your target all you can really do is move the unit back before it pops up in a completely open area, This could just lead to having a portion of your army constantly out of position. Will need to play around with its move speed to see how far it can go in a set amount of time, it certainly cant burrow at the start and reach enemy archers.

Of course it has huge hurdles, namely graphical changes/sound effects, there not being any skills manually activated yet (hope for them!) But if it worked, Dark side should totally get one too, Goblins could have a similar weapon, Demons could have some kind of hell-worm. It just sounds fun and strategic.

Well the drilling idea is very original.

But it seems a bit complex and having a unit that can be invisible and invulnerable for 30 secs mmm. That would be extremely hard to balance and I dont think something like that would be implemented anytime. And relying in the sound to detect it in this kind of game just doesnt suit. This is RTS not action xD.


Still very original idea as I said.

Khor wrote:

Lots of new topics... Thats not exactly how to counter 'elven' archers, just archers in general, or ones itemized to match elves.

This is exactly why I said when playing a game with only Rock and Paper, the race with the best Paper feels OP. No one had scissors to counter archers yet, so every little advantage felt profound. Thats changing quickly.

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But seriously, does high reaction increase the animation speed ? Like if Crossbowmen and Elven Archers both target eachother at once, who fires first ?

The elves would in that perfect scenario. From what I've seen the animation speed does change.

The test I did that is relatively easy to repro by humans or elves:
- Take two archers with different levels of rapid fire.
- Quickly target the same enemy (archer1, archer2).
- Do it again, but reverse the order that you target (archer2, archer1).

Compare when the arrows hit the target. You'll see a difference due to your human reaction time, but you should also be able to detect that one fired faster.

Heh its funny because Dwarves are 'rock' and elves are 'paper' in so many ways, good thing we're on the same side.

Today I noticed a new thing. Dunno if is just animation or its real but Im quite sure that I have seen a pair of times 6 undead skelletons fighting at a time insetad of the usual 5.

It was both times during normal confrontations (no flanking/rearing involved) and the enemy units seemed to have only 5 fighting.

Still most times only 5 fight as usual. I'll try to keep observing and I would tell you if I discover something more.

Edit: Yan told me that is likely just an animation error due to syncronizhation. But well Ill bee watching hehe

No animation error there...

RuneSlayer wrote:

No animation error there...

Does this mean there is a 1:1 relationship between the number of attack rolls per round and the number of individuals we see fighting?

Not necessarily..

Could you correct any of the following statements?

- Archer units get 4 attack rolls per volley.
- All melee infantry units get 5 attack rolls per round.
- All cav get 4 attack rolls per round.

And would you be willing to tell us how attack rolls are handled when a unit is fighting multiple units?

Danm. Runeslayer got up playful today.

Answer me this question too please.

Does more soldiers in a unit mean any advanatage apart from more total health?

Playful? Actually I am multitasking doing 5 things at the same time...Not easy...

Archer units have more than 4 attacks when they fire.

All melee units get 5 attacks per round, per side.

Cavalry attacks vary depending on the unit.

Leave Rune alone! He's busy in negotiations with the Dwarven Berserkers and this HAS to go well ! The sooner they are ready, the sooner humans get their cavemen and elves get their even skinnier dudes (Probably bladedancers?)

So going into forums instead of working?

I would have to talk with you boss.

Heh. Thanks for the info Rune. I'll have to start watching the numbers more closely.

Khor wrote:

Leave Rune alone! He's busy in negotiations with the Dwarven Berserkers and this HAS to go well ! The sooner they are ready, the sooner humans get their cavemen and elves get their even skinnier dudes (Probably bladedancers?)

Its definitely not Rune's fault. Cant be. Those berserkers are prob still hungover and thats why they havent shown up. Theyre tired from being on strike all of yesterday because dwarven cities dont have an alehouse. Side note: You dont have to cross their picket lines, you just step over them. The dwarven negotiator (I know, oxymoron) wont come to the table unless they see a recruiting cost over 150 gold + 2 flagons of ale.

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"Blade Dancers" + Rage ability seems like a slightly iffy combo to me. Doesnt quite mesh. It feels like the unit name needs to evoke a little more ferocity if its going to have Rage as its ability. I suppose you could call them Rage Dancers, but that feels a bit forced, doesnt it?

- Wrath Blades or Wrath Dancers might work.
- Elarin Reapers
- Wrathshroud Warriors
- Vanquishers
- Elarin Warcallers
- Elarin Renegades

Something that makes you think they actually get angry - or at least manifest that inner rage.

Well Elf+Warrior sounds like an iffy combo to me ! But glad to see you're easing into the joys of fantasy racial prejudices.