Discussion of changes to slow?

[JW]

-A slowed unit is 20% less likely to score a melee hit and has half as many ranged swings.

Why not keep it more simple and use the same idea for both types of attacks? There is no reason not too.

Also, decreasing a units defense rate seems overpowered as units with high defense usually need that defense to live. Also, units with 20% def (HI on grassland and most land units in water, right?) would be unmissable; they would be hit successfully on every single swing. That seems far too powerful to me, but perhaps if you played with the % and perhaps made it 5 or 10% it may be more balanced.

The concept is interesting, don't get me wrong, but 20% seems highly overpowered.

[Destructicus]

The %age needs to scale, maybe make it a percentage of the percentage 5 or 10% would be all the difference in the world in some cases and nearly useless in others. But just like every other special there are times to use it and times to not use it. Maybe make slow never drop a unit below 10% defense (seems reasonable, there's always a chance you'll just miss, even swinging at a rock).

I haven't played the game at the hardcore/pinnacle of competitiveness level, but I think this change to slow could bring it to the top of the toolbox alongside the likes of leadership, berserk, and stalwart. It should be tweakable with the other suggestions to find the right level of awesomeocity to fit with what the developers are shooting for.

Why not keep it more simple and use the same idea for both types of attacks? There is no reason not too.

The only reason not to is the 'realism' aspect. Despite the WINR principle, it is still based in reality, or at least some version of it. A melee attack coming in at half speed has a greatly reduced chance of hitting. Even a small child could dodge a punch from George Foreman if its slow enough. It does not, however, make an arrow easier to dodge if I spend 15 seconds knocking and firing rather than 5 seconds, it just takes longer for me to fire it.

[rogue]

I like slow being effective immediately as it is now. It gives the shaman a chance to survive.

I think halving damage is better than halving attacks because then there aren't issues with units like thunderer who have a 1-shot attack.

The defense % changes are interesting, but that is getting too complicated to be feasible.

Best: "Half damage, half movement, no ZOC until cured."

[Dave]

For everyone's information, the reason we implemented changes to slow before discussion was because normally when someone proposes a 'hypothetical' rule change (i.e. a change before there is an implementation) we have a thread just like this one -- everyone has an opinion on it, and there is no conclusion.

Rather we are going to implement it, and then after people have had a chance to play with it we can discuss.

David

[JW]

Is it me or is the new version of slow not implemented in 1.01?

[Darth Fool]

Is it me or is the new version of slow not implemented in 1.01?

No. changes such as the changes to slow which make the game not backward compatible with v1.00 will not be backported into the 1.0 line. They will only take place in the trunk version and any 1.1.x versions that come out.

[scott]

I haven't followed along with the thread after the first page or so, but after playing 1.1 for a while I am really missing the ability to remove attacks with slow. The loss of ZOC is a nice touch, but preference-wise I like better whichever proposed ability removes attacks.

[ott]

Another vote for changing slow in trunk again. The "new" slow, with its complex reordering of attacks, still makes no sense to me. To beef up the usually small effect this new slow has, ZOC removal was slapped on to compensate, which seems the wrong approach. ZOC removal is a nice effect, but perhaps belongs in a higher level "stun" ability.

We are not really tackling the core of the issue. The problem we are trying to solve is that "old" slow is underpowered and underused, according to some of our best players. So exactly why is this so? Well, firstly "old" slow is not generally useful -- against trolls and yetis it is great, but against 90% of units it is of variable (and often negligible) benefit. Second, it is has offensive asymmetry -- great as an offensive tool, but it is useless in defense.

It is acceptable if abilities have limited usefulness. But while most abilities are pretty useful in general, "old" slow is pretty useless in general -- the balance is wrong.

Let me explain about offensive asymmetry here. A unit that is slowed while attacking a defender with slow (slow-on-defense) will laugh it off. At worst its attack will be a bit less effective, since the reduction in damage ability only affects the one skirmish, and no more. On the other hand, slow-on-attack will potentially cripple the target long enough for it to be safely eliminated. This is the case with both "old" and "new" slow.

Now, does this make sense -- those second line shamans have a powerful attacking ability but are useless at defense? Someone using shamans is continually facing a dilemma, use them on the second line as healers, or move them to the front to preemptively cripple big hitters. Slow as used by goblins makes more sense, since they are at least meant to be attacking units. But if the "old" slow makes sense for level 2 goblins, why are we giving it to level 1 shamans, and arguing that it needs to be beefed up? Perhaps the problem then is not with the ability, but with giving an aggressive ability to a passive unit.

As suggested in this thread, I'd rather see slow become "ensnare", and have the effect of halving movement and damage. It should take effect after the current skirmish, and stay in effect until the end of the affected unit's next turn.

This would
1) bump up its effectiveness, since it would halve net damage against all enemies, not just those with two swings per round, and
2) move slow-on-defend from having no effect beyond the current skirmish to having a powerful effect, tilting the ability from a purely offensive role to one that is more biased in favour of defense.

As far as I can tell the code required for this is quite small. It is certainly not an underpowered ability. And it leaves the ZOC removal free for a more powerful version of the ability or for another ability altogether.

[ott]

So, no comments in a week? Does this mean I should code and commit?

[JW]

So, no comments in a week? Does this mean I should code and commit?

I guess so. Your previous post basically made me believe you knew what you were doing well enough for me to simply trust your judgment.

I want to see if I understand correctly though: the new slow would halve damage on every attack and also halve movement for the unit until the end of the units NEXT turn...am I correct?

[khamul]

If you do make the change, can I suggest splitting up the functionality already discussed into 3 specials, as follows:

Ensnare : As above. Halves attacks and movement until end of next turn.
Daze: Removes zone of control. Targetted unit cannot attack until its next turn, but defends when attacked.
Fury: Re-order's attacks as original slow proposal current combat only

Ensare, as you explained, is great and appropriate for a Lvl2 goblin, but not really that useful for a shaman.

Daze I can see as being really good special for a weak mage unit - at a risk of putting a valuable unit in an exposed position, you can potentially disable key enemy positions.

'Fury' avoids the waste of perfectly good code. I can see the argument that it's not much good for a shaman. But imagine a Lvl 2 alternative Orc upgrade with a 10-3 'fury' attack: potentially 30 points of damage before the defender gets an attack back? Ouch.

To re-iterate an earlier point: there is no such thing as an 'underpowered' ability, because the power of an ability is considered when setting a unit's stats and cost. There is such a thing as an inappropriate ability, which is what the shaman was suffering from.

Hopefully, the proposal above splits the suggestions into consistent abilties that can now be applied to appropriate units.

[Sapient]

And what's wrong about removing 1 attack to 0 attacks? It seems more logical to me, and that was the functionality I expected when I first started playing.

That would certainly beef up the power of 'slow', but I don't think it would be overpowered either.

Reducing someones damage by a percentage should be called 'weaken'/'feeble' not 'slow.' It would be better to reduce their chance-to-hit.

I agree that Z-o-C removal should be an entirely different ability, perhaps 'entangle,' which would be appropriate to a shaman.

[JW]

I really like these ideas. Let me share my thoughts with you guys.

Ensnare : As above. Halves attacks and movement until end of next turn.
Daze: Removes zone of control. Targetted unit cannot attack until its next turn, but defends when attacked.
Fury: Re-order's attacks as original slow proposal current combat only

I really like these 3 proposals. But when you say halves attacks, do you mean by damage?

And what's wrong about removing 1 attack to 0 attacks? It seems more logical to me, and that was the functionality I expected when I first started playing.

That would certainly beef up the power of 'slow', but I don't think it would be overpowered either.

Reducing someones damage by a percentage should be called 'weaken'/'feeble' not 'slow.' It would be better to reduce their chance-to-hit.

I also like the idea of Weaken as a specialty attack. That would make more sense. Slow could then be solely a movement related ability.

Why can't a shaman have both Weaken and Slow connected to its attack slowing movement and weakening the opponent at the same time? This would also allow the abilities to be seperated for different units as the cases may arise. In fact, I'm working on a faction right now that already has a unit with 3 abilities on it and could use the seperation to further distinguish my factions attacks from most others. This fury attack in particular could be used for a variation of the orcish grunt advancement(instead of the berserk ability). One thing I'm not sure of is if it will be represented in the info screen properly as I haven't coded any of it yet.

Breaking it down:

Slow: halve movement until end of next turn
Weaken: halve damage until end of next turn
Daze: remove ZoC and cannot attack until end of next turn
Fury: reorder attacks this combat only

and possibly:
Ensnare: a combination of Weaken + Slow

Could someone tell me if multiple anilitiess will fit on the info screen properly? If they do not, then it will be imprtant to either
a) rename abilitiess as correct combinations of effects
or b) recode the graphical display to allow the space necessary
And since the display is already being tinkered with, tihs may be a possibility.

[Squig]

The new special attacks look fine.
I notice that the fury attack seems to be more useful for high-number-of-attacks units.

Concerning slow, i have two remarks:
-Defensive role: shamans are usually attacked with melee, and are fairly weak. they have no defensive role, but a (not less important) support role.
-Looking at the attack icon, i'd say slow is caused by roots ensnaring the opponent. Why not put a fixed malus to damage, used by a slowed unit to chop the roots and free oneself? something like 7-8.
That'd mean more effect on low level/weaken units, and less effect on leaders in good light condition.

[Ask_]

I would also prefer more "modular" abilities, which allows to assign approptiate combinations to each individual units without sweeping global changes.
So, I like Slow/Weaken/Daze/Fury, as JW suggested, perhaps with addition of Entangle/Bind -- "unit can not move until the end of next turn, but can attack", or even (borrowed from Heroes of Might and Magic) "unit can not move until attacker moves or dies, but can attack"