Dunefolk balancing rework ideas - discussion.

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Hejnewar
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Dunefolk balancing rework ideas - discussion.

Post by Hejnewar »

This topic was created with purpose of gathering opinions on changes to Dunesfolk faction. Feel free to present your own opinions too.

The main points that i would like to mention in this discussion would be:
1. How to make dunefolk faction more balanced.
2. How to make dunesfolk faction gameplay feel better when you play as them.
3. Ideas of new units to introduce / replace.
4. Ideas of changes to existing units that would help them flavour and balance-vise.
5. Ideas of units to remove entirely.
6. What alignment should they have?

My own ideas:
1. Changing terrain defenses. - Dunefolk feel realy bad when played at least for me. I often found myself without any point where i could start offensive or defend from enemy. They are almost exclusively hill faction despite being humans and not every unit has good defense on mountains, they have nice defense on sand but map pool is not supporting this fact too much. I think i would be nice to have additional at least a bit common terrain to have 50% on.

2. Units:
Dune Rover - this unit looks like defensive unit but Solider is bette despite his 50% on villages, Rover has less hp and reisitances than Solider. - possible candidate for hp buff.I was considering +3 hp but decided that it's easier to try +2 hp first and see if this is enough. Curio: +1 hp increase is around 1,5% of strength increase in case of this unit.

Polls:
Yes or No to mushroom grove defense buff. (50%)
https://www.strawpoll.me/16815854
Last edited by Hejnewar on November 11th, 2018, 8:20 am, edited 7 times in total.
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Celtic_Minstrel
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Re: Dunesfolk balance ideas - discussion.

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

Yay, more Dunefolk balancing threads.

Once I can see some sort of agreement on what should be done, I'll go ahead and do it.
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Pentarctagon
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Re: Dunesfolk balance ideas - discussion.

Post by Pentarctagon »

One idea that was discussed on discord related to #1 that I agree with - increasing the Dunefolk's defense on mushroom groves. Mushrooms are used as an additional defensive terrain on a lot of maps, and the Dunefolk's lack of good defense on them makes it difficult to, well, defend.
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The_Gnat
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Re: Dunesfolk balance ideas - discussion.

Post by The_Gnat »

Pentarctagon wrote: November 10th, 2018, 2:37 am One idea that was discussed on discord related to #1 that I agree with - increasing the Dunefolk's defense on mushroom groves. Mushrooms are used as an additional defensive terrain on a lot of maps, and the Dunefolk's lack of good defense on them makes it difficult to, well, defend.
+1

Definitely agree! Maybe we should start a poll: Yes or No to mushroom grove defense buff.
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Re: Dunesfolk balance ideas - discussion.

Post by sunset »

Give falcon disengage (after attack a unit can move 1[or2] hex away)
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ghype
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Re: Dunesfolk balance ideas - discussion.

Post by ghype »

Since I am currently porting the new Quenoths to Ageless, I was considering to do the same with the Dunefolk at some point too.
What would be an idea is to collect here the idea , and I will execute them and keep track of them in a different thread and we can see how they play out.

Thus Dunefolk can evolve into something we all'd like to play.
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Hejnewar
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Re: Dunesfolk balance ideas - discussion.

Post by Hejnewar »

Added poll to the first post.

Specified change in point 2.

I do not think that will solve the problem. Dunesfolk already have better scout that is Rider and falcon does not provide almost any water control anyway.
In theory you could remove its atacks and give him lower gold cost and it could become uniquie and better unit.
Last edited by Hejnewar on November 11th, 2018, 8:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Dunefolk balancing rework ideas - discussion.

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

I'm not enthusiastic about doing any of this by a poll (which by the way you misspelled, Hejnewar). I'd rather just see a discussion of the ups and downs of each proposed change.

Even if we did use polls I would have preferred to use the forum's built-in poll system (though I think that might require moderator privileges).

Regarding the disengage idea, there's a similar possibility that might also be worth considering (not sure which is better or even more powerful). We could make a falcon's attack consume some fixed number of movement points, for example 2MP per attack. Then they could continue to attack as long as they still have MP remaining.
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The_Gnat
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Re: Dunefolk balancing rework ideas - discussion.

Post by The_Gnat »

Celtic_Minstrel wrote: November 11th, 2018, 2:13 am
Regarding the disengage idea, there's a similar possibility that might also be worth considering (not sure which is better or even more powerful). We could make a falcon's attack consume some fixed number of movement points, for example 2MP per attack. Then they could continue to attack as long as they still have MP remaining.
That is an interesting idea but I foresee a few issues:

-Will cause a bit if confusion as this is a unique exception
-Encourages attacking with a unit that really is a weak scouting unit
-Will cause the falcon to receive more damage (because the enemy attacks back after you attack each time) almost guaranteeing death of a weak unit.
-Probably OP because it is like the previously suggested power but it allows you to potentially move 6 spaces after attacking.

I see the falcon as very similar to the undead teams bat. It is weak fast and cheap.

The reason for the bat is not terrible is because of its awesome ability to drain which allows it to heal itself and not die despite its low weakness.

IMO better ability for the falcon would be a regenerates power. That extra hit points would make the unit viable strategically with out encouraging or necessitating attacking.

Also if it's OP (which may happen) it could be reduced to regenerates +4.
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Re: Dunefolk balancing rework ideas - discussion.

Post by matto »

Celtic_Minstrel wrote: November 11th, 2018, 2:13 am
Regarding the disengage idea, there's a similar possibility that might also be worth considering (not sure which is better or even more powerful). We could make a falcon's attack consume some fixed number of movement points, for example 2MP per attack. Then they could continue to attack as long as they still have MP remaining.
Sounds OP, better then berserker
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ghype
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Re: Dunefolk balancing rework ideas - discussion.

Post by ghype »

The_Gnat wrote: November 11th, 2018, 5:39 am Also if it's OP (which may happen) it could be reduced to regenerates +4.

how would you explain health regenration on a falcon though?
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Re: Dunefolk balancing rework ideas - discussion.

Post by Elder2 »

I don't see buffing the falcon as any solution, you cant base your army around a lvl 0 unit and a scout one at that. Even if it was made lvl 1 and got significant buffs its still a scout, you can't overbuff it like that. Also if the falcon was changed the horse archer unit would require significant changes, in fact I think horse archer might be the easiest to change, that would leave (hopefuly) buffed falcon as the main scout, but it probably would have to be a bit stronger than bat, preferably maybe lvl 1 too, ud bat is not particularly good now after the nerfs and falcon is in a similiar situation, since dunefolk units are similarly costly as undead units. Except that bat is a bit stronger than falcon now. Having both the 7 mp horse archer and falcon is problematic, if horse archer is much stronger you will recruit at best like 1 falcon, rendering it kind of useless, its kind of similiar with ud but ghost is very different to bat and also in comparison costs way more than the horse archer, making the bat a more viable recruit in comparison.
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Re: Dunefolk balancing rework ideas - discussion.

Post by Elder2 »

Dunefolk vs elf replays (only faction that doesn't completely wreck it rn) You can get some idea about the gameplay, or how liminal units work (they sort of work, but if anything they are cannon fodder to protect arifs, if such expensive units are cannon fodder, deal so little damage and perform so poorly it shows there is an issue, even rami that deals 7-3 during liminal doesnt deal much damage since you get just 1 turn of attack and then it reverts to poor 5-3)
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Hejnewar
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Re: Dunefolk balancing rework ideas - discussion.

Post by Hejnewar »

I think that before any changes we should decide if we will keep ilminal in the way that it is right now.
This is very important form gameplay, design, and balance perspective.

Then we could talk about units one by one and decide if and how they would be changed. I would like to keep this topic organised and start all this with the most important topics like this.

Edit:
To add to Elder's post: liminal doesn't really help you defend, the best it can do is to scare away enemy for one turn.
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Re: Dunefolk balancing rework ideas - discussion.

Post by ghype »

.
About Liminal:

I guess liminal is the biggest faction flaw most players currently see. It is something new, many poeple don't like it, but I guess with some time we could all get used to it. But not in it currents state. Any of my suggestions do not include stat changes. Unit stats probably will have to be adjusted

I see three solutions for that:
(1) we keep liminal's buff as it is, but redefine its "day of time" dependency:
(2) we keep liminal's "day of time" dependency as it is, but redefine it's buff:
(3) we do a combination fo (1) and (2) - (or not):
.
These are the most forward changes that could be applied to liminal.
What do you think?
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