Steelhive Faction feedback/balancing

[melinath]

A fix for the construction fullheal will be included in the next release.

EDIT:: Oh, and Zero, I wasn't sure what you meant by "Ranged Arcane Fire Damage" for the sentient, so I made it a magical fire damage attack back when I added the sentient in the first place. Was that what you wanted?

[Zerovirus]

EDIT:: Oh, and Zero, I wasn't sure what you meant by "Ranged Arcane Fire Damage" for the sentient, so I made it a magical fire damage attack back when I added the sentient in the first place. Was that what you wanted?

Close enough, really. I never really got the difference between all the types and classes of damage...

EDIT:

New unit. Steel Fideliant. Upgrade for Steel Vector. Can charge because they are kinda equestrian and all. Graphic in my graphics thread.

Steel Fideliant
Cost: 43 Gold
Lv3 Lawful
Loyal (always. Every Fideliant is loyal.)
HP: 55
XP: 60 (AMLA)
Moves: 6
Attacks:
Steel Lasher (6-6)
Trample (9-3) Charge

[melinath]

Need damage types for lasher and trample. I'm thinking blade and pierce?
Also, just so it's clear, the magical fire damage has a 70% hit chance. That's the magical part. It might make more sense as a marksman (60% min hit chance).

[Zerovirus]

Yeah, it probably might. I always found myself maxing out sear first because of its high hit chance. Marksman would make it less effective.

Actually, rename Lasher to Impale. And obviously then impale is pierce and Trample is... Slash I guess, because impact doesn't really make sense with all his spikelegs.

[Zerovirus]

Alright. I do believe that we have overpowered our faction. I've been playing as the default factions against the AI steelhive. These are my results.

Steelhive V. Rebels
Rebels are owned every time. I just can't see a good unit or tactic to use against Steelhive. Woses deal plenty damage and can kill a steelhive unit in one attack if they get lucky, but their high cost doesn't let you get as many of them out into the field as the Steelhive units and they are too slow making them vulnerable to the Steelhive's higher average speed. Plus, they're vulnerable to fire attacks which the Oculus units deal out abundantly.

Steelhive V. Loyalists
Loyalists can hold out better but in the end they lose as well. Same problems with the Heavy Infantrymen, really, except without the fire weakness. Haven't been able to find a reliable method of defeating the Steelhive with these guys either.

Steelhive V. Northerners
Northerners fare a bit better. Troll Whelps are a lot cheaper which puts them on even ground... I had a blast with all the cheap swarms of robots and Trolls smashing away at each other. The trolls' lack of ranged attacks was an annoyance, though. The Steelhive's turn was almost exclusively composed of ranged electrical attacks. In the end, though, I lost with Northerners. They just surrounded my forces and blasted away with their cursed Oculi and Drones.

Steelhive V. Undead
Undead got destroyed. The skeletons' attacks don't damage the Steelhive much and they're vulnerable to Fire. The Dark Adepts aren't much use due to the arcane resistance. The major benefit of Ghasts is the poison attack special which the Mechanical thing kinda neutralizes, making Ghasts no better. WCs? You have to be kidding me. They're useless because you can't plague the robots anyways. Ghosts I'm not so good at using, but they did okay-ish.

Steelhive V. Knalgan Alliance
I didn't test with these guys. Mainly because I've never played Knalgans before and I'd probably get owned anyways.

Steelhive V. Drakes
Steelhive got owned. Drakes are resistant against fire which mitigates the Oculus's overwhelming effectiveness against almost every unit. Admittedly the damage could have been better, what with all the slashing weapons, but overall the Drakes seem to be able to counter the Steelhive.

Conclusion? The Steelhive are a bit overpowered. Most of the factions didn't have a real way to deal with them.

Maybe a few more weaknesses? Like, say, 20% weakness to Cold? These are just my thoughts. Other people playing the faction might feel differently.

[melinath]

Changelog 0.4.7:
-Added a terribly-written message explaining oddities about steelhive gameplay.
-gave slasher line reduced def on fords and bridges.
-gave lightshifter floating text when you click it.
-increased impact weakness to 20%.
-gave 20% cold weakness.
-added fideliant,welder, and repairer. Raised the welder's cost to 14 gold. Gave the welder 4 mp on the thought that repairbots probably aren't designed for speed.
-reduced lightshifter cost to 8. Left cybercone cost where it is because cybercone leadership is probably an overpowered ability.
-added a weld attack icon.

That's all the units, right? Complete faction?

[Zerovirus]

Hmm... I'm not sure it's complete faction yet, I wasn't even sure where I was going with the faction when I started it anyways. I'm not going to add any units in for now, though, so for now I suppose it's complete.

Of course, that doesn't mean it's balanced. Oh, no. Or that the graphics are in any way final.

To do list in graphics:
Steel Boltstriker- Clean it up (it looks like a jumbled mess)
Steel Repair Line- Redo
Steel Sentient- Spinning animation
Everything else- maybe an attack pose

Did you remember to add new units to the Lightshifter's shifting capabilities? You haven't updated that in a bit. Also, maybe we could make the Steel Scout one of the leader units.

[Zerovirus]

ARRGH

YOU BROKE MY FACTION

Ahem.

Well, something went wrong here, Melinath. See attached image for detail. I think you messed up some obscure WML grammar with some of the CFG files, but that diagnosis is subject to non WML knowledge.

In any case, I do believe a lookover is warranted.

[wesfreak]

try playing with ai default faction and you as steelhive. it might be different.

i think it's okay that the steelhive don't have a good ranged against drakes. it might weaken them a bit, but elves have no good melee against drakes and they can fight them.


don't we still have to make the hive queen line?

[Zerovirus]

I'm not even sure Hivequeen is going into the faction, but I guess we could.

Me as Steelhive v. Enemy AI= Enemy loses every time. Like Melinath said, Computer is eternally stupid. In any case I can't test the new balancing because the faction doesn't work.

[melinath]

Fixed, along with a few bugs. The fideliant is not yet loyal... working on it.

[wesfreak]

i guess the reason undead isn't so good on steelhive is that the steelhive aren't weak to anything the undead have, plus they have things the undead are weak to. i suggest making the sparkgazer more expensive, and giving him a weaker attack that has electrical and taking it away from his main attack, to remove some advantages.

the steelhive may have to pay for there even movement with terrain defense like the drakes did, but i think it shouldn't. to be more realistic, i would change their defense and movement over some terrain. in forest and hills they should be better, because the terrain still hides them from attacks, and trees would get in the way, even while hovering, lowering movement.

the knalgans could probably win against the steelhive, but if you want to test them without playing them you could droid both sides and see what happens.

[Zerovirus]

@ Wesfreak: What's the point of making a Lv2 unit more expensive if you can't buy it and we're balancing it for multiplayer? Knalgans would probably win, almost all their units have an impact attack. The terrain changes I'll let Melinath decide because I just don't really know.

@ Melinath: Well, unless the Fideliant is loyal, it's not much use because it's much weaker than the Vorpal. Also, I made better repairer&welder unit images in my thread.

Reduce the Drone line attacks:
Drone: 5-4 to 5-3
Scout: 5-5 to 5-4
Recon: 5-6 to 5-5

[melinath]

try playing with ai default faction and you as steelhive. it might be different.

i think it's okay that the steelhive don't have a good ranged against drakes. it might weaken them a bit, but elves have no good melee against drakes and they can fight them.


don't we still have to make the hive queen line?

wesfreak has a point. Although the computer is eternally stupid, it's more stupid when it comes to custom factions/abilities/etc. compared to the default factions. Of course it won't react to the lightshifter leader trick, but w/e. Would likely be a slightly better test, though not as ideal as a 1v1.

on another note, Zerohivevirus and I may still make the hive queen line. I was thinking: we could make it a leader-only line, starting at level 2 and non-recruitable.

My new to-do list:
-reduce flying def, increase flying movecost in forests
-reduce drone line attack numbers by 1
-get that loyal trait working!
-get the message working
-add the new welder/repairer graphics.

[Zerovirus]

So, question now. Do you guys want me to make the Hivequeen look like my current hivequeen version with all the coolness from the very beginning or make her have to level up into the badass destroyer that she's meant to be?

Choice 1: Steel Nymph=>Steel Hivequeen=>Hive Empress

Choice 2: Steel Larva=> Steel Nymph=> Steel Hivequeen=> Hive Empress

The Steel larva would be weak. Like WC weak.

Oh, BTW: Steelhive V. Knalgans, both sides AI. Steelhive destroyed Knalgans. Moron computers don't know how to use impact attacking units.

EDIT:
Tomorrow (wednesday), does anyone want to get online and try out the new balancing?