An idea about trolls

[Velensk]

Read more carefully. I said that your change would make the archer more powerful in every match and that mine would give the troll better counters in a few matches. Never did I say that my proposal would not affect balance. Affecting balance was the point. However you cannot claim that your proposal affects balance in the same way.

I do not believe that if we give trolls a fire weakness they will be useless or un-recruitable in loyalist or rebel match ups. That seems like a ridiculous assumption. They are still a unit with 42 base hp, regeneration, and resistances to common damage types and they are cheap.

Your solution is more creative. I do not believe that it is better.

[Orin]

Exactly how much negative fire resist are we talking about here? -10% or -20%?

[Velensk]

Enough to get 11-2 damage I was thinking. I think that would be 30% though I havn't checked. The actual % isn't as important as the effect it has.

[Sorrow]

Enough so 4/4 kills I assume is the goal.

[Orin]

you need -20.1%

I'm just concerned it will be hard to justify lore-wise that trolls are weaker against fire than skeletons.

[Velensk]

That's not at all a problem. Aside from the fact that Wesnoth is the kind of game that follows gameplay over lore, consider that technically ghosts are more resistant to arcane than drakes and that elusives who don't wear armor tend to have negative resistances while elvish shamans/mages who don't wear any armor (that we can see) don't suffer such penalties.

EDITED for acurracy.

[Araja]

I'll agree with this, a 10% or 20% fire weakness sounds like a good idea.

And as for the lore, well lore is only worked on once the gameplay idea has been accepted.
It's a nice extra, not a driving force.

[Scatha]

Are trolls regarded as too good, or simply too hard to displace in this matchup?

If they're not regarded as too good, would be it be better to approximate balance by giving them this vulnerability as well as some minor bonus elsewhere? Not extra HP (that could be counter-productive ...), but perhaps decreasing the experience threshold by a point or giving them an extra 10% resistance to some other damage type? I guess that would make them strictly better against factions without access to fire damage; the flip side is that if just the fire resistance is changed they're being made strictly worse against anyone with access to fire.

[Velensk]

just that they are to hard to displace in this match-up.

It's kind of pointless to give trolls a vulnerability only to counter it by giving them more hp to withstand that vulnerability. This is especially the case when the troll is already a very tough unit and not all factions have access to fire.

[lostnumber]

Now I'm not really much of a MP guy so I cant speak to the various balancing issues you guys are discussing.

However from a fantasy lore perspective, trolls are almost ALWAYS weak to fire. The idea being that burned flesh of a troll can't regenerate. In fact in many fantasy realms, burning a troll is the only conventional way to kill it, as otherwise it will simply regenerate whatever wounds it was given. I was very surprised to find out that despite having regeneration, trolls were not weak to fire in Wesnoth.

I know that balance trumps lore, but assuming this is a worthwhile balance change then there is DEFINITELY the lore to back it up.

[Aethaeryn]

Now I'm not really much of a MP guy so I cant speak to the various balancing issues you guys are discussing.

However from a fantasy lore perspective, trolls are almost ALWAYS weak to fire. The idea being that burned flesh of a troll can't regenerate. In fact in many fantasy realms, burning a troll is the only conventional way to kill it, as otherwise it will simply regenerate whatever wounds it was given. I was very surprised to find out that despite having regeneration, trolls were not weak to fire in Wesnoth.

I know that balance trumps lore, but assuming this is a worthwhile balance change then there is DEFINITELY the lore to back it up.

Perfect. Fire weakness has a precedent now.

I would love changes to balance being done to help out mirrors. Undead mirror went from one of the dullest to play to one of the most entertaining to watch once DAs got an arcane secondary. Imo, mirrors are the worst part of the game in terms of balance.

[Velensk]

Thought I might bring this up again since another development cycle has started and AFAIK it still hasn't been implemented.

[Doc Paterson]

I'm still strongly in favor of this.

[Huumy]

I don't know if this is too old post to reply. Haven't see this thread earlier.
Anyway I'm against the 10% or 20% fire vulnerability because:
1. I think trolls aren't too strong even now and in northeners mirror orc archers are already good vs trolls.
2. This would make northeners vs loyalist and rebels harder matchup. I'm not the best player with northeners, but I think trolls don't need nerf. This would make the long game for northeners slightly harder, which means you have slightly more reason to rush loyalist/rebels so you never get to longer game. I'm not fan of northeners rushes, they are heavily luck based.
3. The idea was to make northeners mirror more interesting? With these changes you would simply use less trolls, more grunts, assassins and goblins, not big change I think.

Take a moment and think why northeners mirror is so boring. It's because the style of the faction. The faction is made to outlast other factions, they are made to overwhelm with cheap units and slowly kill the opponent army.

I think this change would make loyalist and rebels even better vs northeners in long game, it's not much but it's still something. This makes northeners to be even more rush or lose, not much but it's still more the same.

I have no better idea to make the matchup less boring, but I think this won't have any effect on the boredom of the matchup but it has small effect 2 other matchups, effect that is not needed in my opinion.

The best idea to come my mind to make northeners more interesting overall, is to add a very expensive unit (24+ gold) to their recruit list that is still orcish quality but still it does more damage and have more HP than regular orc units.

This is of course just my 2 cents.

[Kolbur]

I can only agree with Huumy.
I can't see how this change would make Northerner mirrors more interesting. It just leads to less trolls bashing each other and instead more grunts slashing each other.
Also it does not only change the balance vs 2 factions, but 3 in fact! Trolls would be significantly less useful vs Drakes too where they are already not the best unit. Versus Rebels and Loyalists they do play a vital role though. This is too much collateral damage imo.