New Ability Sworddance

[DMB]

Hello, I am attempting to create a faction and am wonderig if an ability I have in mind, Sworddance, fits in well for balancing?

Sworddance would either act as a tamer version of Berserk (I'm thinking 3-5 rounds of combat, I want it to seem like a controlled assault, imagine a man literally spinning around his oppeonent lashing out with quick stroks of his sword and making the air hum) or give off the impression of the swordsman skillfully parrying blows and getting in fast quick jabs but focusing more on avoiding hits. For that I'm thinking of increasing his terrain defense and ressistances when he uses his Sworddance attack.
The faction forcuses on specializing, whether it be speed, damage, or versitality. The base grunt unit is a swordsman, 35HP, 5-4 blade melee, and 10% blade ressist and 20% arcane ressist with 5 MP, and the base 42 exp to advance. At level 2 he becomes a Bladesman and goes to a 7-4 blade with 52 HP and 20% blade and arcane ressistance but also gains an extra move point giving him 6 MP. He is meant to be weaker than the Loyalist Swordsman, but he weilds two slim swords and his design focus would be spinning blades and speed (the level 3 has an 8-5 blade attack) and I'm thinking of adding an ability to convey that rather than giving him tons of attacks and having strength turn him into a ridiculous OP unit.
Now the Bladesman's main attack is the 7-4 blade. The Sworddance attack would be a 3-5 blade, so it's not a high damage ability, but a useful one depending on whether it takes the Beserk approach or damage reduction approach. I think +10% terrain defense (he gets standard human defense, 60% in castles, 50% in forests, 20% in rivers, etc) and +10% to all physical ressists would be enough.

Please post your opinions on how the two ideas would affect gameplay, whch one you like better, any balancing issues or maybe even a better idea for my swordsman's ability if you've got one.

[Telchin]

First, as your topic is about an ability in a custom era I think that this topic should be either in Faction&Era Development or in WML Workshop rather than in Ideas forum.
Second, I like the pseudo-berserk more than the other option. That said, have you considered making the sworddance the unit's only attack? (perhaps making the sworddancer a separate unit or an alternative advancement to the faction's basic grunt) I guess it might be easier to balance then (compare that the Dwarvish Ulfserker is berserk-only)
Third, whether the unit is balanced might depend on other units in the faction and other factions in the era. I would suggest choosing one option, playtest your faction/era and then fix any obvious issues (and then playtest again to find any new issues etc.)

[DMB]

I'm designing my faction to be playable against the default factions, and...well adding another unit to the Regualr's development pat might be a tad overkill. The Regular can become a frail, quick backstabbing skirmisher with poison, a Bladesman, a steadfast swordsman with arcane ranged that doesn't have extra advancements and an elemental swordsman who has fire and cold melee attacks.

The issue with it is the Bladesman has less health, damage, and ressistances than a human Loyalists and I wanted him to have an ability that makes him specialize in swordplay. The spearmen either become light infantry which are quick, all around units that lack damage potential or heavy damage dealers that are very slow.

The Irregular's carry large spears that I gave an 8-2 Firstrike piercing, a 6-1 pierce ranged, and they can club with the butt of their spears doing 4-3 impact melee. Versitile, but also low damage potential all around. If they level they can choose heavy platemail giving good physical ressists and either a Spear (and lose the impact attack) or a Hammer (and lose the pierce attacks, and change out the javelin for a sling) and be reduced to 4 move points. On the other hand becoming a Light Infantry grants them 6 move points, they get a 7-3 pierce melee, 7-3 pierce ranged, and a 5-3 impact melee. They also have low health and no armor, but are slightly better moving through rough terrain and shallow water. All the units have something that makes them stand out and do better in specific situation, but they tend to have a lot more weaknesses. The armored spear and armored hammer line both have -10% to fire and cold, as well as being slow. They don't suffer from immobility like Loyalist Heavy Infantry do, they have the base 40% defense on flat, but their armor is not nearly as good. 10% blade and impact, and 20% pierce for the spear and 10% blade and pierce with 20% impact for the hammer. The Swordsman lacks something to make him stand out however. He needs an ability, something that shows off his fighting style-which is to parry away blows and strike fast but not necessarily hard. I have considered simply giving him higher base terrain defenses. Do you think that would be better than an ability?

And yea, I should have put this in Faction and Era development. Not sure why I put it here sorry.... Brain fart I guess.
Is there any way I can move it or would a moderator have to do that?

[8680]

Is there any way I can move it or would a moderator have to do that?

A moderator would. Moved to Faction & Era Development per your request.

[Chris NS]

At the moment, the idea is getting a bit complicated. If you're considering an idea, it is a good idea to consider the idea in isolation rather than hurriedly create a unit tree incorporating everything. I'm still not sure what this is meant to achieve.

However, if you go back to the original idea of a tamer version of Beserk, I think that's got potential. With Beserk, you go through the attack cycle again and again until one party of the other is dead. With a milder version, you could maybe go through the cycle twice or three times instead of an unlimited number of times. (Actually, the limit is 30 to safeguard against situations where no-one ever hits their opponent, but that's in effect good as unlimited.) If I'm not mistaken, that is a very easy tweak to WML.

Not sure "sworddance" would be a good description through. Being a short distance from Scotland myself, my idea of a sworddance is putting two swords down on the ground and doing a dance over them wearing a kilt. Requires a lot of talent, but not a terribly good idea if you're dealing with a ferocious troll. I suggest "Frenzy" would be a better name.

[DMB]

Hm. Well let me first off start by saying I've been working on this since last year. The unit tree has gone through several reworks and variations, and I keep playing with the numbers trying to make it balanced. The swordsman is giving me the most trouble, as they are a Lawful faction day/night affects them. I had originally planned for the sword tree to focus on tons of attacks, but that became really hard to balance.
Blade Warriors as I call them are 8-5 blade melee now, but that may change. This means 30 at night, 40 base, and 50 day. So, he's quite a bit weaker than a Royal Guard, 2-4-6 difference, if the units are strong that makes it (Blade) 35-45-55 vs (Royal) 36-48-60, so much better balanced.

The biggest balancing issue was at level 2 however, as level 2's are the big multiplayer game changers. Originally the path for the swords were 4 strike at level 1 to 5 strikes at level 2 to 6 at level 3, with strong trait this made the level 2 potentially really OP (6-5 originally, now 7-4) so I had to rework it. Now since he's a 7-4 he's a weaker fighter than both elves and loyalists, so I want something to make him stand out. He has less HP, armor, and damage. I would like an ability for him that gives him the flare of, oh I think a good analogy would be that of a fencer. Instead of being a fencer he wields two slim swords (with two regular sized swords at level 3, and two short swords at level 1) and some armor, he's a frontine fighter with a graceful fighting style. Swordplay, feints, and quick jabs while remaining light on his feet.

I like the idea of the weak Berserk, but since the main balance of Berserk is it being a double edged weapon it needs balancing in and of itself. If it's too weak it's useless, if it's too strong it's OP. Nothing is much worse than a Berserk that only benefits the user (Barbarians in Age of Magic for instance), so if I do the Berserk attack it needs to be balanced according to the fact that it's only a benefit. It should be a high chance to kill type of attack, finishing off a wounded unit or being able to hit an evasive target.

Would an attack with a high amount of strikes simply be a better idea? For the level 2 Bladesman he has 28 base damage, 36 at day. If I gave him a 3-7 alternative attack it would be 21 base and 28 at day. So agains a full health enemy or an easy to hit enemy his main attack would be better while his fast attack would be good for a high chance to finish off a unit or hit an Assassin hiding in woods. I'm starting to lean toward scrapping the ability idea.

[taptap]

Take a look at imperial era - sidhe. The ability is called fury there. They also have sth. similar to the bladesman you describe (as another unit) and yet another unit in the fighter line that goes for backstabbing. If unlimited berserk is possible to balance limited berserk should be possible too. Just make the unit expensive enough that you don't happily trade it 1 to 1 for its preferred targets.

Though if I would like to make an intimidating shock infantry I would probably take a different way and make an ability that increases strikes on attack and reduces strikes on defence, which is more in line with my mental image of berserkers than their de facto role as murderers of helpless intellectuals Elephants in Era of Four Moons use such an ability to great effect.

[DMB]

I think I'm simply going to give the Bladesman two attacks, a 7-4 blade and a 3-7 blade. I don't want him to be a berserker because he's not. It's why I called it sworddance, it's supposed to be a graceful flurry of strikes that overwhelm a target's defenses.

Of course..if the unit's strong that buffs the attacks from 28 base to 32 base for the 4 strike attack and 21 base to 28 base for the 7 strikes attack...hmm...maybe 2-7? Or 3-6? At 2-7 that would be 14 damage reguardless of day/night...maybe 2-8 since that's the case...the 3-6 seems a little better. 12 at night, 18 neutral, 24 day with marksman. Or maybe 4-6, 18 night, 24 base, and 30 day with no marksman.

That said, would marksman on the attack be too much even with a weak attack? Keep in mind this is a level 2 unit, non recruitable except as a leader for multiplayer. At level 1 he's a 5-4 blade with 10% blade ressistance, so nothing incredible there. Same exp to advance as a Loyalis Spearman.

Balancing factions is hard. At this rate I might start hardcoding in by the end of the year.
But I'd rather start later with a good solid base before I have to clean up an absolute mess I coded in quickly.

[DMB]

Or, here's another idea. An attack that when used offensively presses combat until the loses a certain percentage of it's max HP? Limit it to 5 or 10 rounds max, but end early if, say, once 50% or more of it's max HP is lost? Or maybe 40%? Say a unit with 50 HP uses the attack. If he takes 25 damage or more combat will immediately end. He wouldn't be able to use the attack with 25 or lower hitpoints, maybe put some kind of swarm attack on it. And he would also be able to take more than just 25 damage, say he has 6 HP and he's going up against an Iron Mauler. One swing of the flail and he's down to 1 HP, and he breaks off combat there of course.

Anybody have any thoughts about that? Or know if it could be coded into WML easily? I'm not the best coder out there, but if it could be done I think I could do it.