Balance changes for Wesnoth 1.20

[Dalas120]

Well, Poachers are also Thunderer's alternative

In MP, yes. But many SP campaigns and UMC are Dwarvish campaigns, and the player doesn't get access to the outlaw portion of the Knalgan MP faction.

Of course. If only we weren't the only ones thinking about it now and ready to voice their opinion...

I see no benefit to adding the Scout as a MP unit. It will certainly cause MP balance issues, and will also restrict the available design options for SP.

Another factor is that it breaks the theme/tradition of elves having 0% resistance to most types of damage

That's a great point. I hadn't realized that was a feature of the race's unit design, but now that you've pointed it out I agree that it would be preferable to keep it that way, to help maintain the race's identity.

Perhaps tackling the HI multiplayer issue from the Knalgan Alliance side will reduce restrictions on the HI's stats, allowing it to be buffed in simple ways that can make it good in MP without seriously affecting SP.

Exactly.

Spitballing some poorly-thought-out ideas then, getting progressively more extreme as the list goes on...

Now that the Ghoul will have 30% impact resist instead of 0%, does that allow us to buff the Dwarvish Fighter's hammer from 8x2 to 9x2 without ruining Undead? Similarly, would it hurt other matchups to increase the Dwarvish Fighter's impact resist so it's less vulnerable to the HI?

Or, what if we improved the Footpad's ranged damage while weakening their melee to compensate? A 6x2 ranged footpad at night deals the same damage vs HI as the current 8x2 Dwarvish Fighter, without taking any damage in retaliation.

As suggested earlier, maybe we could also lower the HI's Pierce resist to 30%. This would allow Thunderers to deal an additional 2dmg (~20%), and allows Poachers to deal an additional 4dmg during neutral and nighttime (~40%).

Or if we allow HI changes to spread even further, Skeletons' impact vulnerability could be reduced from -20% to -10% or -0%, which would leave room to buff the Knalgans' impact damage more... which would leave room to buff the HI. I'm sure there would be no unintended consequences of a massive change like this, right?

Alternatively, there's still the old suggestion of increasing the HI's melee damage but adding a special or second weapon to limit its effectiveness on defense, making it more vulnerable to both Fighters and Ulfs (such a special would also be useful on the Naga Guard line, as well the new Forest Lion). I think that "offensive juggernaut" HI isn't too much less thematic than "defensive tank" HI.

The Ulf itself could also possibly be given an alternative impact damage berserk weapon, or some sort of resistance-piercing special (either separate from or added on to Berserk), provided that wouldn't break other matchups. Or, that same resistance-piercing special might also make sense on the Thief, as it thematically fits Backstabs.

If we're looking to improve SP as well, what about adding an alternative L2-only fire damage advancement to the Thunderer? AFAIK this might be too strong vs Undead or Woses, but I tentatively imagine it's easier to level a Thunderer vs Loyalists due to their cavalry.



I'm sure most of these ideas are absolutely terrible, but I hope one or two of them might show promise. Would one or more of these changes improve the Knalgans-vs-HI matchup (without ruining others) enough to allow for HI buffs in damage or traits to make it competitive in other matchups?

[ForestDragon]

That's a great point. I hadn't realized that was a feature of the race's unit design, but now that you've pointed it out I agree that it would be preferable to keep it that way, to help maintain the race's identity.

Glad that you agree on that.

Spitballing some poorly-thought-out ideas then, getting progressively more extreme as the list goes on...

In the first half there's some honestly pretty decent ones.

Now that the Ghoul will have 30% impact resist instead of 0%, does that allow us to buff the Dwarvish Fighter's hammer from 8x2 to 9x2 without ruining Undead? Similarly, would it hurt other matchups to increase the Dwarvish Fighter's impact resist so it's less vulnerable to the HI?

I think 9-2 hammer sounds like a fairly reasonable idea, and it fits fairly logically into the damage progression (9-2 > 14-2 on lvl2 looks just as natural as the current 8-2 > 14-2), and you are right that ghoul's impact buff would cancel it out in most campaigns where dwarves and undead fight. It's certainly less radical than some other changes that got pushed through.

Or, what if we improved the Footpad's ranged damage while weakening their melee to compensate? A 6x2 ranged footpad at night deals the same damage vs HI as the current 8x2 Dwarvish Fighter, without taking any damage in retaliation.

I like this one too. Lvl2-3 stats could even stay as-is since 6-2 > 6-3 ranged progression is alright (melee gets a big spike in damage from 3-2 to 8-2, but the current lvl1 to lvl2 progression already doubles damage from 4-2 to 3-2 so it's fine to me)

As suggested earlier, maybe we could also lower the HI's Pierce resist to 30%. This would allow Thunderers to deal an additional 2dmg (~20%), and allows Poachers to deal an additional 4dmg during neutral and nighttime (~40%).

Nah, I think that is not thematically as good as buffing Knalga's impact damage output.

Or if we allow HI changes to spread even further, Skeletons' impact vulnerability could be reduced from -20% to -10% or -0%, which would leave room to buff the Knalgans' impact damage more... which would leave room to buff the HI. I'm sure there would be no unintended consequences of a massive change like this, right?

Alternatively, there's still the old suggestion of increasing the HI's melee damage but adding a special or second weapon to limit its effectiveness on defense, making it more vulnerable to both Fighters and Ulfs (such a special would also be useful on the Naga Guard line, as well the new Forest Lion). I think that "offensive juggernaut" HI isn't too much less thematic than "turtle tank" HI.

The Ulf itself could also possibly be given an alternative impact damage berserk weapon, or some sort of resistance-piercing special (either separate from or added on to Berserk), provided that wouldn't break other matchups. Or, that same resistance-piercing special might also make sense on the Thief, as it thematically fits Backstabs.

Personally I am not in favor of these changes.

If we're looking to improve SP as well, what about adding an alternative L2-only fire damage advancement to the Thunderer? AFAIK the biggest uses for this would be vs Undead and vs the HI (and vs the Wose), but I tentatively imagine it's more likely to level a Thunderer vs Loyalists due to their cavalry than it is vs Undead.

I like this idea. Admittedly it would not affect MP that much, much thematically it would fit very well with dwarves, and I already seen multiple add-ons (including IftU) use a fire branch for the thunderer so there is some popularity for the idea already.

I'm sure most of these ideas are absolutely terrible, but I hope one or two of them might show promise. Would one or more of these changes improve the Knalgans-vs-HI matchup (without ruining others) enough to allow for buffs in damage or traits enough to make it competitive in other matchups?

More than one or two, you posted THREE good ideas

[Roge_Tebnelok]

In MP, yes. But many SP campaigns and UMC are Dwarvish campaigns, and the player doesn't get access to the outlaw portion of the Knalgan MP faction.

Their creators probably know that and balance their UMCs accordingly.

I see no benefit to adding the Scout as a MP unit. It will certainly cause MP balance issues, and will also restrict the available balance options for SP.

Of course it needs to be thought through and tested, but how do you think will this restrict SP balance options?

Or, what if we improved the Footpad's ranged damage while weakening their melee to compensate? A 6x2 ranged footpad at night deals the same damage vs HI as the current 8x2 Dwarvish Fighter, without taking any damage in retaliation.

Not sure about weakening their melee, the rest makes sense.

If we're looking to improve SP as well, what about adding an alternative L2-only fire damage advancement to the Thunderer? AFAIK the biggest uses for this would be vs Undead and vs the HI (and vs the Wose), but I tentatively imagine it's more likely to level a Thunderer vs Loyalists due to their cavalry than it is vs Undead.

There are even sprites for them in Era of Chaos.

[Hejnewar]

I would recommend to start thinking critically.

[SexyPringles]

Ghoul - Changed resistances to 10/10/30/20/20/20 from 10/30/0/10/10.

Thunderer - cost changed from 17 to 16 gold.

I like these changes, ghoul was already a decent unit imo and these resistance buffs make it even more worthwhile. Same thing with thunderer, reducing its cost makes it more desirable.

Finally fencer 0% impact resistance from -20%

-10% impact resistance should be enough, 0% seems too big of a buff. Fencer is anyway the "hard to hit" kind of unit, fast and has skirmisher. He should have the low resistances as weaknesses.

Dune Soldier ranged parry from 0 to -10%.
Dune Burner 5-2 melee, -10% melee accuracy , -10% melee parry, 7-3 ranged, res -10/10/20/0/0/10 +1mp (6), 17g, -1hp (34)

These changes are worrying me even more than the HI one. Soldier has a -10% parry against ranged attack, why isn't your HI shield reasoning used for Dune Soldier as well? Why doesn't the shield provide additional ranged parry?

Well it just isnt slow. Its moves are in fact so slow that it has trobule parrying melee attacks, while the big shield provides additinal ranged parry. I mean that fits.

If the objective was to nerf the soldier against ranged attacks wouldn't just reducing the pierce resistance from 20% to 10% or even to 0% do the trick?
The burner is also in kinda of a weird position with the -10%/-10% accuracy and parry. I'm not really in favor in removing the melee attack entirely. I would suggest to make it 6x1 melee attack at least, the original 6x2 wasn't even that bad but lowering it to only one strike should be enough.

Hi - -10% melee parry, +20% ranged parry, no fearless, 5mp, 17g 40/50/0/0/-10/10 resistances

This is a tricky one ngl. I understand that you're trying to make HI more viable and at the same time make it weaker against knalgans.
Simple is beautiful so i believe this is doable with slight resistance, trait and terrain defense modifications.

Not really in favor of removing the fearless trait, that's one of the things that make HI good, I'm more in the fence of making fearless a must have trait for HI, keeping the original 4mp and making the resistances 40/20/0/0/-10/10. This way the dwarf impact attacks work against the HI and thunderer/poacher ranged pierce will be more devastating but HI won't be weakened by the time to day. And if the HI "low" pierce resistance would be a problem thematically then simply increase it to 40/30/10/0/-10/10 for lvl 2 unit and finally 50/40/10/0/-10/10 for lvl 3.

Also I noticed how you reduced the HI castle defense from 50% to 40%. I'm more in favor of keeping it in 50% (maybe even increase it to 60%). So a fearless but 4mp HI with decent castle defense but impact and pierce resistances lowered slightly for balance. This way HI becomes more desirable defense oriented unit than attack, useful at key locations in the map but still with a weakness to exploit.

[Caritas]

Hi
My thoughts:
1) ghul is very useful unit, as UD player I value ghuls a lot, look at Danniel_BR's games when he often used ghul zombie combo, poisoning and finishing weak units with corpses. Also to kill a ghul you need 5/6 hits with mage and if you attack it with melee and miss you will have huge problems in upcoming turns. After poisoning mage mage becomes useless. I'm against lowering it's pierce and blade resistance.
2) thunderer change I don't really care about, it would help against drakes that they are weak but help against elfs that they are strong against.
3) archer blade resistance I dislike, first match up that comes to mind is UD and skeletons, 2nd is drake, elf/drake match up is one of the better balanced. Also make little sense that archers are heavier armored than fighters.
6 mp mage seems pretty op, good luck retreating with skeletons
4) loyalists are one of the stronger factions now you buff HI, fencer and make mage cheaper...
5) dunefolk I don't care too much they are op at this moment I haven't played enough

[Hejnewar]

4) loyalists are one of the stronger factions now you buff HI, fencer and make mage cheaper...

I guess after all this time it is time to nerf the spearman if they are still among the strongest what ever that means. Both horses were nerfed, bowman is used rarely pretty much only if you have enough spearman, HI is just bad, mage in comparison with competition is less than stelar, merman only works on maps with water and fencer I dont think it would be the culprit here. So only spearman is left. Hopefuly loyalosts will be finnaly out of the best and in the normal tier. Altho the fencer change was really more of a test and see during 1,5 yers rather than something granted.

6 mp mage seems pretty op, good luck retreating with skeletons

That remains to be seen as I dont think you played the era. The mage has quiet a few disadvantages over regular one and one unintended advantage that I didnt yet fix so use it while its still op!

help against elfs that they are strong against.

Thats one of the reasons why archer gets the blade resistance btw.

drake, elf/drake match up is one of the better balanced

I will allow myself to agree and disagree here at the same time, I think drakes have the advantage here. I see where you are comming from since the fight between fighter / archer and clasher / fighter / burner are really close and actually confirms that my overview is correct, however when looking at saurians in addition to that figher wins closely but archer loses quiet badly. In addition to that if drake fighter can use its mobility (which granted isnt on every map we still have den of onis in the map pool for example, but we also have hellhole, ruphus and badlands) it will have slight advantage over fighter AND over archer. In addition archer is by default worse in this machup due to its weakness to saurians that fighter doesnt have. So becoming the prime candidate foe a change.

I'm against lowering it's pierce and blade resistance.

Blade resistance was never touched idk where you got that from but you got it wrong.

5) dunefolk I don't care too much they are op at this moment I haven't played enough

Also confirm what I already knew and that the direction of changes are good. Nice.

These changes are worrying me even more than the HI one. Soldier has a -10% parry against ranged attack, why isn't your HI shield reasoning used for Dune Soldier as well? Why doesn't the shield provide additional ranged parry?

There isnt any reason. Its just the simplest way of fixing soldier and improving it for various matchups. As I already mentioned.

I would suggest to make it 6x1 melee attack at least

Thats already way too much. This unit is much closer to the limit than people realise.

If the objective was to nerf the soldier against ranged attacks wouldn't just reducing the pierce resistance from 20% to 10% or even to 0% do the trick?

I prefered to change parry as it is more fun in game rather than make another 0/0/0 resistances unit. I still do.

Also I noticed how you reduced the HI castle defense from 50% to 40%. I'm more in favor of keeping it in 50% (maybe even increase it to 60%).

Never, castle tiles are not common defensive tiles like mountain (and even there I prefer if units that have bad defence everywhere dont get sudden spike in power) , if map maker wants to use them or when map has them I really dont want to limit them or tie HIs power to a map. Because on that one map you suddenly really want HI because castle tile is in a good defensive position.

40/20/0/0/-10/10

People already argue to not remove even 10% of impact. I dont see this future. Even if it might have somewhat worked.

That's a great point. I hadn't realized that was a feature of the race's unit design

And its one that is actually really hated by me for balance reasons. If you put two units with no resistances which one will win? Well obviously the stronger one. There is no need for anything so lets just throw our strongest units at each other and see what happens. Really boring.

Now that the Ghoul will have 30% impact resist instead of 0%, does that allow us to buff the Dwarvish Fighter's hammer from 8x2 to 9x2 without ruining Undead? Similarly, would it hurt other matchups to increase the Dwarvish Fighter's impact resist so it's less vulnerable to the HI?

Please read what I write since I outlined changes to this matchup pretty well and you seem to forgot most of what will happen. Fighter was never impacted by increase in impact resistance since before and after it still deals the same damage to the ghoul now just having worse last hit option in some cases.

Or, what if we improved the Footpad's ranged damage while weakening their melee to compensate? A 6x2 ranged footpad at night deals the same damage vs HI as the current 8x2 Dwarvish Fighter, without taking any damage in retaliation.

This basically invites you to HI & Horseman meta since foot just dies to basically anything loyal has but to the horseman the fastest.

I dont feel the need to respond to anything else honestly.

Dwarves have 4mp, woses have 4mp, troll whelps have 4mp, and all are units considered viable in multiplayer. So personally I don't see the 4mp as an inherent problem. If anything, it makes the HI more unique compared to other loyalist infantry units. The main problem here seems to be the knalga vs loyalist matchup in terms of damage types.

Alright, now explain to me why they work and when and why Hi doesnt. Because I know that but it seems that you clearly missed why that happens and just think that 4 mp units can exist just like that and they will work within faction because few exist. I think this will be nice thinking excercise. So yeah there are reasons.

Hi again

If I could I would just make new unit in its place. Keeping it as is is simply not worth it for me as it is clearly noob trap that is only useful in very specific circumestances that requires a lot of knowledge from the player and actively lowers loyalists win rate just by existing.

I wont respond to everthing there is too much.

[name]

Is this planned to advance to the Enchantress or a unit unit line? (or both) Art will probably be the biggest bottleneck here. Mainline-quality art for one new unit is hard enough, much less a whole line of them (if that's the intended direction).

I second this idea of simply adding a level one "novice" pre-enchantress unit (who advances to enchantress) as the recruitable arcane spellcaster for the rebels. It seems crazy to create a whole new unit line (with all the artwork that entails) for a role that is already almost filled by an existing one.

[ForestDragon]

Is this planned to advance to the Enchantress or a unit unit line? (or both) Art will probably be the biggest bottleneck here. Mainline-quality art for one new unit is hard enough, much less a whole line of them (if that's the intended direction).

I second this idea of simply adding a level one "novice" pre-enchantress unit (who advances to enchantress) as the recruitable arcane spellcaster for the rebels. It seems crazy to create a whole new unit line (with all the artwork that entails) for a role that is already almost filled by an existing one.

Good idea. It does sound more preferable than an entire unit line, on the condition that elf shaman still is able to advance to sorceress as usual (other a huge amount of campaigns would break, especially UMC)

the unit's ranged attack would also have to be 5-4 instead of 4-5 and 5mp, to be consistent with Sorceress

[Hejnewar]

Oh it seem that this goal is too ambitious for this project and the wold of wesnoth cant have more than one mage type or even afford to make 3 sprites. Yeah that im ignoring. I see this as a literal slap in the face of not me but the project.

[Mirion147]

Hej, I really feel like you need to take a step back from not only this project but how you view wesnoth as a whole. No one is slapping this project, or you. People (pretty active members of the community/dev team) are sharing their opinions, offering new ideas so you have something else to choose (which isn't their job). I'm not sure why there should be any attitude other than "how can I achieve balance. Not only between the units, but also between the community. Keeping things interesting while actually hearing what the community is looking at, and how they're feeling."

You have been as unacceptable as possible while still allowing conversation about the topics. Also, it seems to me that if you come up with something that the community doesn't like, it is your responsibility to come up with something better. Not the communities responsibility, or else.

None of this is meant to be an insult or to be read as if there's attitude in my words, there isn't. We all want what's best for wesnoth and are trying to do our part and respond. Can you do your part and take in that feedback and find that balance?

[Hejnewar]

What community wants? Everyone seems to want something else. Actually some of the community wants all the changes so I guess I should just do them then? After all it is what community wants right because why should their voices be valued lower than the voices of people here?

I really hope for everyone now to explain to me which voice is the most important Im really curious.

[Mirion147]

Balance. Find a balance.

[Hejnewar]

XD That doesnt answer my question. Dont avoid it answer me.

Since again everyone wants something else. And all people act as if nothing cant go their way. Well if you say balance then I do 50% and you have a right to contest the remaining 50%. After all Im also part of the community, or am I not in the community?

[Mirion147]

I have been very clear. I'm not going to getting into a sarcasm match with you. Find a balance of what people are saying and what works. That's your job, figuring out how to do that is your job. That's what you signed up for when you volunteered for the role. If you don't want to do it, that's fine, but then maybe you should consider not being in that role.