Footpad + ulf v undead, overpowered

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Doc Paterson
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Re: Footpad + ulf v undead, overpowered

Post by Doc Paterson »

I'll reiterate that any questions about map influence and playerside influence (and/or degrees of both) need to be fully explored, so please, do not post only replays of player 1 Knalgan vs. Player 2 Undead on Freelands.
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Rigor
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Re: Footpad + ulf v undead, overpowered

Post by Rigor »

why not, it is highly interesting how u can use the p1 advantage on this map, dont u think so too? thats probably also why it is played so often!
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Re: Footpad + ulf v undead, overpowered

Post by 5dPZ »

Doc Paterson wrote:I'll reiterate that any questions about map influence and playerside influence (and/or degrees of both) need to be fully explored, so please, do not post only replays of player 1 Knalgan vs. Player 2 Undead on Freelands.
My games' setup was

me: dwarf with Rogue leader
enemy: undead with any leader of player's preference

I let enemy choose side (half of them side 1, half side 2) on any maps that have more than 1 front.
I warn about footpads spam in game title as well as before turn 1 recruitment.

Those games were rather easy.

Update: Last game was vs b-bone, a decent player
Im side 1, he's side 2 on Wyvern Channel
He started with +40% inflict for first 5 turns, +20% inflict for first 10 turns which gave him an upper hand (this is due to almost-always 2/2 from his DA shot, and several 2/2 hit of his corpse attack on 60% def pad resulting kills and free corpses for him, which gave me hard time). I managed to play defensively and bring back to equal foot where we both feel tired, he finally went for a failed leader assasination.
Bat in water on this map as well as the 2 fronts instead of Freelands' 3 make it tougher to pull pad swarm out, but it can still work well. Thus, I don't think the problem lies in Freelands the map, but on certain units.
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Re: Footpad + ulf v undead, overpowered

Post by Rigor »

he would have won u forgot to say. and the central pathway for bats and ghosts were THE strategy to win, but he didnt get it. btw although u r online all the time u still didnt answer the question about me playing UD.
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Re: Footpad + ulf v undead, overpowered

Post by F8 Binds... »

From pondering over this matchup, I've determined that a mixup of mostly DA's, a few skeletons for village holders / ulf killers and (maybe) a bat or ghost (maybe even several) seems like the best counter strategy. If he tries to take out any skeleton on a village, even if he succeeds you can fry the crap out of his footpads, even zoc with ghosts. Also, with 4-5 adepts and a few skeletons to shield them, advancing to attack becomes much easier.
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Re: Footpad + ulf v undead, overpowered

Post by 5dPZ »

F8 Binds... wrote:From pondering over this matchup, I've determined that a mixup of mostly DA's, a few skeletons for village holders / ulf killers and (maybe) a bat or ghost (maybe even several) seems like the best counter strategy. If he tries to take out any skeleton on a village, even if he succeeds you can fry the crap out of his footpads, even zoc with ghosts. Also, with 4-5 adepts and a few skeletons to shield them, advancing to attack becomes much easier.
You can not "fry the crap out of his footpads" because the pad player will zoc enough so you get only 2 attacking spot for pads, and chance to kill is minimal (there are 33, 34, 36life pads, and during day, a 4/4 da shot, that is , UD player makes the 20% chance hitting all 4 will be 32 dmg) while you expose ur DAs to ulf if you fail. Usually UD players won't take the risk.
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Re: Footpad + ulf v undead, overpowered

Post by Tonepoet »

Okay, got to try my bat scouting against it on Silverhead Crossing as player 1. Did a lot better than my last run so the added capacity for flight to take shape did help, especially when it came to catching Ulfserkers with my ghosts and scouting his back-end (I feel this is true especially since we actually ended up swapping sides) but I still lost. My opinion is that it could've continued to be mostly even for a lot longer but things didn't quite turn out as I'd have like.

I believe this is due to three factors: Forgetting to move my leader on turn 1, meaning I couldn't pursue his pure footpads as quite as effectively as I wanted to early game; moving my guard off of 19,24 out of curiosity which cut my protective ability for my southern villages to near nil when the footpads caught him; and an errant footpad's luck preventing me from recruiting when and where I wanted.

I must admit though, this is rather hard. I'm not sure the first two factors would've driven me into even attempting the third, if it was another matchup. I mean, I may have a reputation for doing stupid things with my leader sometimes but not because I necessarily feel I absolutely have to except in rather dire situations. I feel real kick in the pants is moreso the Ulfserkers than the footpads themselves. You could probably make the 14g kills very easily by spamming just adepts and adepts alone but the Ulfserker threatens deterministic loss of the adept if you're not super careful, which is definitive 2g loss. Nothing too significant but it's certainly not an improvement in your situation. Normally you could just get to the Ulfserker and make a kill back to recoup your loss but since the footpads are so cheap and durable, their ZoC web can block you several times over. I feel F8's statement might not be totally unwarranted though as that's kinda how I started leaning in this match and I almost never get Skeleton Fighters because of fear of impact or fire damage. When I do get skeletons, I lean more towards the archer really, just so I can always get retal.

I wanna see if this can be worked into from something else though: As it is I stand by the thought that 6 footpads is an instant loss against any other faction, except maybe rebels leaning more heavily on the side of elves and even then it'd still be a chore to fix. I have an idea as to how I might go about making a rather easy transition though. Any volunteers for playing the undead side?
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2p_-_Another_Loss.gz
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Re: Footpad + ulf v undead, overpowered

Post by Rigor »

i just had a nice game with 5, playing like i would not be aware of anything, he was playing the aggressor and i was trying a professional defense line with lots of skeletons and some corpse backup. unfortunately the line didnt hold...at all...although he was mostly attacking only from 3 sides. sullas ruins allowed him to brilliantly employ footie tactics which he played very disciplined and consequent- in the sense of - he took advantage of the middle and played prima ballerina from one side to the other. at some point the free damage he could deal to my skeleton troops started to show its effects and soon the first footie leveled up. unfortunately except one time during dusk where he lost units he fought strictly during daytime and was having a really good time with it.

here is the replay
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2S_–_Die_Ruinen_der_Sulla_Wiederholung_anzeigen.gz
footies on sulla
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Re: Footpad + ulf v undead, overpowered

Post by 5dPZ »

Rigor wrote:i just had a nice game with 5, playing like i would not be aware of anything, he was playing the aggressor and i was trying a professional defense line with lots of skeletons and some corpse backup. unfortunately the line didnt hold...at all...although he was mostly attacking only from 3 sides. sullas ruins allowed him to brilliantly employ footie tactics which he played very disciplined and consequent- in the sense of - he took advantage of the middle and played prima ballerina from one side to the other. at some point the free damage he could deal to my skeleton troops started to show its effects and soon the first footie leveled up. unfortunately except one time during dusk where he lost units he fought strictly during daytime and was having a really good time with it.

here is the replay
Thanks for posting, rigor, it was a great game.

No doubt that I got the luck in that game (+30% inflict at beginning, even +20% at end), but I think we demonstrated a couple points:

*Pad + ulf not only works on the Freelands, but also bunch of other maps (at least 4 other "balanced" 1 vs 1 maps that I have tried)
*The "free damage" from footpads are very powerful, fearless trials of attacks not worrying retaliation nor the counter-attacks next turn is the key to win. If i got luck like this game, I win. If I don't get luck, I just can't kill your guys, but I can safely run away whenever I want to because I always keep enemy zocced and unable to flank.

Good conclusion is that imbalance lies in units, not maps.
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Re: Footpad + ulf v undead, overpowered

Post by Golbeeze »

Considering it is only Knalgan vs Undead, I don't think it warrants any unit changes. Also, I'm sure a counter can be determined with more testing. That goes without mentioning the RNG swaying things. I do find the evidence strong for the "imbalance" here, but again, I don't think the issue is strong enough for altering any unit stats.
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Re: Footpad + ulf v undead, overpowered

Post by Wintermute »

oesis vs wintermute rematch going on now, perhaps several of them

EDIT: we played two more games, Knalgans (me) winning on Freelands as p1, and Knalgans (oesis) winning on Sullas as p2.

So far my opinion is that if the races are known ahead of time the UD has a really hard time in this matchup. The knalgan player can be sloppy and still win with relative ease. It is really, really frustrating to be the UD player in these games. If you make any progress at all the footpads just melt away and attack somewhere else, only to return under more favorable conditions - and they can always pick where to fight. A balanced UD force is problematic, as there are always weak points for ulfs or free damage for the footpads. Trying to counter with mostly skels or mostly adepts is also problematic.

What should happen next: we need to find out if there is an issue in a random faction game if the knalgan player transitions to this strategy after turn 2-3 upon finding out they are fighting UD. It that is the case then this is a real problem. If the strategy can be countered effectively after a balanced knalgan recruit (That is, taking out the "footpad rush" aspect of it) then this is less of an issue IMO, as it is always somewhat problematic picking factions beforehand in a game.

replays attached.
Attachments
2p_-_The_Freelands_replay.gz
My first game as knalgans testing this strategy. I recruit ulfs pretty late after poor gold management, and I start off loosing 2 footpads. Overall sloppy play by me but I feel confident through the whole game.
(16.09 KiB) Downloaded 318 times
's_Ruins_Turn_7.gz
Feeling scared at the idea of trying to defend ground against footpads, I tried an early adept rush as player 1. Perhaps it could work, but don't try it at home, kids.
(24.05 KiB) Downloaded 303 times
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Re: Footpad + ulf v undead, overpowered

Post by Lorbi »

I might not be the most experienced player but i just would like to throw in some ideas:
The UD player might be able to us the low cost of the Pad to his advantage
1. just defend until upkeep kicks in
2. keep ur own upkeep low by:
- using ghosts ( expensive units keep the total unit-count down )
- using zombies and bats ( once u have enough lvl1 .... )
3. attack later with hordes of zombies and bats

another thought:
if i can't put my DAs to good use, don't recruit them ( or not as much as one would usual )

ps: i'd be happy to try this out against anyone willing to play me
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Re: Footpad + ulf v undead, overpowered

Post by psychic »

Lorbi wrote:I might not be the most experienced player but i just would like to throw in some ideas:
The UD player might be able to us the low cost of the Pad to his advantage
1. just defend until upkeep kicks in
2. keep ur own upkeep low by:
- using ghosts ( expensive units keep the total unit-count down )
- using zombies and bats ( once u have enough lvl1 .... )
3. attack later with hordes of zombies and bats

another thought:
if i can't put my DAs to good use, don't recruit them ( or not as much as one would usual )

ps: i'd be happy to try this out against anyone willing to play me
You have easily used the word defend. Keep in mind the pad player attacks in the morning with ulfersker creating the opening. Even ghosts face certain death in the morning against ulf.

I suggest you watch a few replays posted because the pad strategy involves swarming in huge numbers, stealing villages and dealing free damage against adepts/skele.
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Re: Footpad + ulf v undead, overpowered

Post by Rya »

This doesn't sound like a unit needs to be modified, but rather that the undead faction needs an additional unit.
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Re: Footpad + ulf v undead, overpowered

Post by CragHack »

Did anyone try with mainly ghouls and ghosts, so far? + maybe 1 or 2 skeletons. As far as i followed the discussion, DA's were still considered as the core unit in this matchup, so far. I think they can't be a good counter neither for Ulf's (for obvious reasons) nor Footpads. Since the DA has a magical attack, it doesn't matter for the footpad which hexes he is standing on. They can always be placed in a manner, that DA has to attack from 40% def terrain. Then, cth for DA is 70%, for the footpad 60%, so it is not that big difference. DA deals 10-2 on average, but the footie gives 5-2 retaliation + 5-2 melee on the following turn. That means, damage output of footpad vs. DA is nearly the same. Additionally, footpads have more hp, and damage output and hp is further increased by the strong trait, while DA's don't have this trait. Finally, the footpads are cheaper and faster, which means they can be ganging up on the DA's wherever they want. The threat of the Ulfs reduces activity range of the DA's even further. Ghouls and Ghosts have the best resistancies vs impact of the UD faction, also the poison should be quite useful. Furthermore, when the Ghoul is placed on high def terrain, he should be able to win vs ulfs or at least cripple and poison them, so they can easily be finished by the Ghost afterwards.
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