Balance Ideas (Unit Changes)

[Dauntless]

This topic is growing fast and i just skimmed most of the texts. (Pls be as brief as possible next times, remember everybody after you has to read all the stuff before he can actually say something reasonable)

So my brief comment to suggested changes is:

Cav: i like the res change, if that wouldnt work, the -hp
Dwarf poison: not sure, prolly no change
Assassin price: definitely no change - orcs being weak in general, increased price would be lethal for them
And my personal proposal: reducing wose cold res to 0 (to help UD deal with them a bit)
Cheers

[Cackfiend]

@Cackfiend:

- Cavs resistance + HP should be left as they are. They are the only units that make undead and orc rush manageable.

- Making Dwarves healthy treat cut poison in half will just make dwarf vs. orc impossible for orc. If orc doesn't attack, game goes againt him. Dwarf camps in strong strategical positions which are impossible for orc to attack. Poison is the only way to regain acces to those strategical positions for Orc. Loyalists and Elves have mages, Drakes have powerful ranged&melee + augurs, undead have adepts, orcs don't have anything. Camp a healthy resilient dwarf on a mountain and that's your lasy highly efficient defence against orc... Do not mess with orc poison, the healthy +2 bonus is more than enough.

i take it u didnt actually play when healthy cut poison dmg in half? it didnt exactly ruin the matchup the way you theoretically explain. I'll be happy if its changed at least to 6 poison dmg for healthy units, though i would like it to be more than that.

if cav hps and resistance are left alone they should at least cost more imo

[Cackfiend]

But now I feel curiosity: It is really footpad spam vs ud so powerfull on 2v2 to nerf him? I never felt like it

im pretty sure you just owned Noys balance point of view

[Kolbur]

That's very sad.
Not even -2hp? Did he give a reason or just say no?

He says Wesnoth is balanced for 2v2, not for 1v1. "1v1 puts too few units on the field and thus really puts more focus on individual unit balances. the unity density is too low, particularly with how a lot of 1v1s are designed" He said him and the other devs got together and discussed it and decided no cav nerf will happen because this is just my point of view on it and its mostly a map problem not a unit problem.

=/

good news is Dwarves will most likely be seeing a buff

This is... I have no words...
I wonder if Noy ever took a closer look at the 2v2 maps. If anything 2v2 balance is a MAP problem, not a unit problem. The 2v2 maps are not even close to be balanced imo. 2v2 in general just seems to be balanced because of the multitude of possibilities the many different faction combinations offer. But just because there are so many combinations it doesn't mean that everything is balanced automatically.
Anyway, this cemented my opinion that the devs mostly just do whatever they want...

[Reepurr]

Footpads were nerfed because they could safely kill skeletons without taking much damage in return.
Vampire bats were nerfed because they could safely flap in, capture all the villages and be near invincible with steals and high resists.

Also, cavalrymen v gryphons...why deal with them using gryphons anyway? With their low resistance in everywhere - they never even get 50% AFAIK - you can pick them off with thunderers without retribution.

[Velensk]

Reepurr... griffons get 50% defense everywhere and cavalry cannot get it anywhere.

Footpads were strong against skeletons but that alone was not the reason for the nerf. The reason you gave for why it was done makes little to no sense when you can also say things like, grunts can safely kill dark adepts without taking much damage in return, thunderers can safely kill walking corpses without taking much damage in return (if any) or a myriad of other such unit matchups. The problem was the footpad/ulf combination being able to deal with the things that were supposed to counter it.

[Reepurr]

Reepurr... griffons get 50% defense everywhere and cavalry cannot get it anywhere.

That's what I meant - cavalrymen never even get 50% AFAIK; I'm sorry if that wasn't clear in my previous post. I'm also sorry about my mistake with the skeletons, that's what I read somewhere...

[Velensk]

I had assumed you were talking about griffons because you said low resistances which is one of the particular aspects of cavalrymen that was under discussion for possibly being too good.

[Faello]

I've already heard about nerfing the cav idea couple days ago, but - going through this topic - I see already a lot of nerfs proposed for Loyalists, which are (from the experienced 2vs2 player point of view) unacceptable.

1)nerfing spearman melee dmg - bad idea, it's relatively high dmg output during the day is balanced by the fact it has no resistances, worst land movement type and averange defensive abilities, it's a well balanced unit regarding it's cost (14gp)
2)nerfing HI because of it's usefulness vs dwarves - nope, as much as it may be surprising for 1vs1 players, in 2vs2 knalgans are one of the best two factions around (other being the Drakes) due to the fact that maps are midsized and with plenty of hills and mountains around, they also provide a good synergy between factions and are almost always hard to deal with, more or less HI speed prevents him to be used in "casual" push during the powerphase, after you need to withdraw on defensive positions, it's a pricey unit with already limited use, from the point of 2vs2 nerfing HI isn't a good idea either
3)cavalry - it's not a classical scout (neither is gryphon), only thing that cavalry has in common with other scout units is speed, which is good, but besides that, cavalry cannot move through mountain hexes (which often results in ZoCing it by a single unit if it's adjacent to mountains) and has the worst movement type when compared to the other scouts (while gryphon mobility and attack possibilities are superb)

So I agree with Mabuse on this one:

also, loys are pretty slow(weak movement type), that they have a fast melee unit is a slight compensation for that (though in no way very dodgy or something).

In the end I'd agree to cut some hp's from cav (let's say -2hp) and maybe take the "strong" feat from it, BUT such a change like this one:

My fix would be: melee to 5-3, and HP-2.

Seems to be too extreme

Please, remember that loyalists are not as mobile on hard terrain like rebels, knalgans or drakes and fencer is hardly a decent melee unit.

I'd also like to underline that this game is already somewhat balanced and any changes regarding units should be made, based upon something more than a few replays and single person opinion - several factors should be taken under consideration:
- opinion of experienced players (best ladder players and other that are around long enough to not be biased)
- more than a few games
- 1vs1 (first and foremost) and after that, 2vs2 balance
- this game WON'T be 100% balanced with different factions

with regards,

Faello

[Doc Paterson]

I'm done with this thread, but, I want to add, in reference to this tangential concept about 1v1s:

The offer is there for anyone to make a 1v1 with the same (or even slightly less) mountain/hill concentration as a 2v2. Make it, post it, and test it with good 1v1 players. Maybe you'll discover something that 6 years of 1v1 map adjustments hasn't. (Sorry, was that passive aggressive?) But seriously. Make it. Post it.

Farewell, thread.

[Huumy]

To be honest I'm not sure if cavalry is overpowered. That I would say is because of my mentality: when I lose to whatever, first thing I think is "what I've could have done better" and there have been no single game where I look at it and go "I played really good but lost because x is overpowered or underpowered".

All I know it's good idea to use cavalrymen in most of the match ups. This tho only says that cavalrymen are stable unit of loyalist.

Still I would like to see cavalrymen HP decreased or it's cost increased for the dev version. If balance of the game is worse than before the changes, change it back. For me this seems like the best solution mostly because many top players are saying that cavalry and/or loyalist are op. Tho making balance changes is always lots of work for dev team

[Cackfiend]

In the end I'd agree to cut some hp's from cav (let's say -2hp) and maybe take the "strong" feat from it, BUT such a change like this one:



I'd also like to underline that this game is already somewhat balanced and any changes regarding units should be made, based upon something more than a few replays and single person opinion - several factors should be taken under consideration:
- opinion of experienced players (best ladder players and other that are around long enough to not be biased)
- more than a few games
- 1vs1 (first and foremost) and after that, 2vs2 balance
- this game WON'T be 100% balanced with different factions

with regards,

Faello

Glad you agree at least about some type of nerf for cavalry. I think the majority of "top" players agree that something (anything) needs to be done about the cavalry. Me Dauntless and leocrotta/nani have put in our 2 cents to the Devs and they have made it very clear nothing will be done, so we're really beating a dead horse here. Not sure why this topic still isnt locked yet....

[silent]

Going back to the 2vs2 balancing issue...was there any reason WHY they'd do it through 2vs2 and not through 1vs1? Because that confuses me a fair bit, as 2 different factions (or so I'd have thought) could cover up the weakness of the other, or something to that effect.

[Velensk]

Actually, it makes a certain amount of sense to me as a map designer if not as a player. On a 2vs2 map you will likely have more units/villages per unit of ground than a 1vs1 and can do this without practically guaranteeing stalemates. Also under these circumstances the strength of any one type of unit is more likely to be de-emphaised as A: between two enemy factions your opponent is more likely to have a good counter, and B: specifically in the case of cavalry or other highly mobile units, with two players of varying alignments you are considerably less likely to be able to simply continually outmaneuver your enemy (especially since as previously mentioned most 2vs2 maps have more rough terrain than 1vs1s)

Also on a 2vs2 map you can design an inherent mirror to a 1st player advantage thus countering it in total effect allowing for more ease in creating more interesting fronts and keeping an aggressive design without limiting the players option to choose to retreat in multiple ways.

This would not eliminate unbalanced match-ups in a way but it would make it so that they come up considerably less frequently.

[Wintermute]

briefly, I'd agree that cav are great against orcs, but they have weaknesses. Anyone recruiting too many of them is going to be punished. I'd enjoy seeing replays showing them exploiting orcs, and I think it would help the debate.

on the assassin issue, there may be an issue there, but that replay you posted Cackfiend is worthless at making the case. The Dwarf player recruited ZERO thunderers, ZERO poachers, and ONE ulf (and that only one turn before the game was over, around turn 15 IIRC). Of course grunts and assassins are going to pwn nothing but fighters thieves and footpads.

Personally, I still favor the dwarves in that matchup, but I haven't played the ladder in a while. Maybe the kids have new tricks these days.

I'll try to get some games in against the current players in the next few weeks and see what happens.