Under the Burning Suns
Moderator: Forum Moderators
-
Atreides
- Posts: 1243
- Joined: March 30th, 2019, 10:38 pm
- Location: On the 2nd story of the centre village in Merwuerdigliebe turning the lights on and off
Re: Under the Burning Suns
If I remember correctly the faction had to be modified for balance to fit it with other factions (including the default factions).
By the way, you could make an addon era yourself that includes the default + this faction. Pretty easy. But as mentioned the balance might be off. That is OK though.
By the way, you could make an addon era yourself that includes the default + this faction. Pretty easy. But as mentioned the balance might be off. That is OK though.
Re: Under the Burning Suns
Ageless Era is working on it, which will probably bring the 1.16 Quenoth Elves into Ageless; just in time for 1.18 to put a different set of sylphs into mainline.tactics123 wrote: ↑August 27th, 2023, 3:12 am So far the ones I've found only shares the same name, but are entirely different. The name of the era is Ageless Era and Neverending Era.
-
tactics123
- Posts: 8
- Joined: July 30th, 2023, 3:41 am
Re: Under the Burning Suns
Cool! That's good to hearAgeless Era is working on it, which will probably bring the 1.16 Quenoth Elves into Ageless; just in time for 1.18 to put a different set of sylphs into mainline.
Re: Under the Burning Suns
After big gameplay changes comes time for improvements.
The biggest problem with current version of UtBS is that I see people talking about, lack of incentive to recall L3 units. Personally I focussed on them a lot, even too much during first playthru so they certainly are viable but the problem is that other players find them too expensive and without any further incentive for use as they are already max level.
At the same time I dont want to buff them.
So I came up wih few solutions:
1. Specialisation - after reaching max level units can level up again and choose specialisation (or not) which would make the better suited for the role that player wants them to perform, this one also basically ignores RiPLB. For example Quenoth Champion can gain life or resistances at the cost of damage output or reverse.
Cost of specialisations (as well as specialisations themselves) can be very different, it can come in pretty much any form, like upkeep or even base cost. The specialisacion can even make the cheaper but more upkeep intensive but for that player would actually need to use them for a prolonged period of time so this isnt great solution.
2. Heroes - create game changing AMLAs that directly impact how the game is played, example of one would be something like "Favouritism" where first L3+ unit recalled is cheaper but every subsequent one is more expensive. This would also improve replayability so I might do that anyway. I dont want to say much right now but I have pretty fun ideas here.
3. Increase in starting gold - this also makes the campaign easier if not balanced by enemies but when balanced it makes the battles bigger and that slows down the game especially on choky maps. Not my favourite.
4. Cheaper L3 units - this is easy to do, I can make unit like Quenoth Ranger quiet cheap, from 60g to around 40g, it is not very used right now as poison is not great in campaigns so it might give it a bit of a second life and different role. This doesnt solve the problem entierly but it improves the situation also possibly making the few unts that are going to be changed this way into their own subplaystyle (but presonally I love recalling 100g taurochs).
5. Artifacts - I was thinking about it but in my hands it would end up as specialisations most likely and anything else is better put on heroes. So I dont think it would be great.
6. ... I had one more idea somewhere, will add it when I find it. Maybe I will think of something new.
Okay, so for now my favourite is 2, but I see myself also doing 4 and 1. 3 can be used in scenarios that are currently too hard instead of nerfing enemies.
The biggest problem with current version of UtBS is that I see people talking about, lack of incentive to recall L3 units. Personally I focussed on them a lot, even too much during first playthru so they certainly are viable but the problem is that other players find them too expensive and without any further incentive for use as they are already max level.
At the same time I dont want to buff them.
So I came up wih few solutions:
1. Specialisation - after reaching max level units can level up again and choose specialisation (or not) which would make the better suited for the role that player wants them to perform, this one also basically ignores RiPLB. For example Quenoth Champion can gain life or resistances at the cost of damage output or reverse.
Cost of specialisations (as well as specialisations themselves) can be very different, it can come in pretty much any form, like upkeep or even base cost. The specialisacion can even make the cheaper but more upkeep intensive but for that player would actually need to use them for a prolonged period of time so this isnt great solution.
2. Heroes - create game changing AMLAs that directly impact how the game is played, example of one would be something like "Favouritism" where first L3+ unit recalled is cheaper but every subsequent one is more expensive. This would also improve replayability so I might do that anyway. I dont want to say much right now but I have pretty fun ideas here.
3. Increase in starting gold - this also makes the campaign easier if not balanced by enemies but when balanced it makes the battles bigger and that slows down the game especially on choky maps. Not my favourite.
4. Cheaper L3 units - this is easy to do, I can make unit like Quenoth Ranger quiet cheap, from 60g to around 40g, it is not very used right now as poison is not great in campaigns so it might give it a bit of a second life and different role. This doesnt solve the problem entierly but it improves the situation also possibly making the few unts that are going to be changed this way into their own subplaystyle (but presonally I love recalling 100g taurochs).
5. Artifacts - I was thinking about it but in my hands it would end up as specialisations most likely and anything else is better put on heroes. So I dont think it would be great.
6. ... I had one more idea somewhere, will add it when I find it. Maybe I will think of something new.
Okay, so for now my favourite is 2, but I see myself also doing 4 and 1. 3 can be used in scenarios that are currently too hard instead of nerfing enemies.
Re: Under the Burning Suns
In my opinion, I'd amend this to be: lack of "fun" when leveling/recalling L3 units.The biggest problem with current version of UtBS is that I see people talking about, lack of incentive to recall L3 units
I personally found L3s absolutely essential for victory, though I definitely did have to think carefully about how many to deploy. But instead of feeling pleased when I level a high-xp unit, I instead felt like "ugh I just used a consumable" (since now I have to pay a lot more to get that same L2/L3 next scenario).
Basically instead of feeling like I was improving my army over time, I felt like I was just kinda changing my army, and every kill I got on certain units was "spending" a limited XP budget instead of XP being an actual reward.
The trouble is, AFAIK that was your main goal of the variable recall costs - to make leveling units not always a straight power upgrade, unlike in the other mainline campaigns. So I don't really know what to do about it.
Out of the concepts you proposed, my personal favorites are #2 "Favouritism" and #4 cheaper recalling for L3s - I do think those would be helpful.
Re: Under the Burning Suns
Glad I pinged because I just remembered wrongly.
There is actually really simple fix for that: variable variable recall costs that just go +- like 70% L1, 50% L2, 30% L3 etc. But im just too stubborn to actually go for that in UtBS and really like L1 spam. But ye I agree I cut out like 100% of power from XP of units and shifted it to heroes by quiet a bit.I instead felt like "ugh I just used a consumable" (since now I have to pay a lot more to get that same L2/L3 next scenario).
Basically instead of feeling like I was improving my army over time, I felt like I was just kinda changing my army, and every kill I got on certain units was "spending" a limited XP budget instead of XP being an actual reward.
Actually there were many goals and that wasnt main one at all if it was a goal at all. Making recall system that is resilient to balance changes and that makes campaigns easy to balance on different difficulties was the goal (and for that it is perfect [I only balanced one difficulty, otherse were naturally fine and didnt require pretty much any additional changes]).The trouble is, AFAIK that was your main goal of the variable recall costs - to make leveling units not always a straight power upgrade, unlike in the other mainline campaigns. So I don't really know what to do about it.
Its just that Im too stubbornt to not try to do impossible and add feeling of progression in a system where there is no power to give and I personally enjoy "impossible" tasks. At the same time I had (now I have less) super mp focussed mindset. Now I have better understanding of SP progression and where it lies and how to balance around that progression but probably far from perfect still.
Even when writing this I got a new idea tho.
Re: Under the Burning Suns
Just wanted to provide some feedback regarding the most recent changes for this campaign after playing through it on Nightmare difficulty.
I like the idea of having multiple attacks per unit to split up, but functionally speaking I almost never used the Fighter, Warrior, and Champion ones. You get too much retaliation damage for it to be worth using unless you have a high chance to hit and the single hit will kill a unit. I think upping the parry %, especially as you level up is worth considering as a way to improve its usage. The other option is creating a single ranged attack like the Loyalist spearman unit to provide some minimal retaliation on ranged attacks. That might require further rebalancing the unit, but I think it is worth it to make those attacks more practically useful for players.
The Flanker and Ranger ranged attacks work because there are plenty of units with no ranged attack or only a very weak one that makes it worthwhile to use compared to the melee ones for the other 3.
I suggest reverting the damage nerfs to the Mystic class back to 4x2 melee and 3x2 ranged. The tailwind ability is a fun addition, but Mystics are by far the weakest level 1 unit by cost and making it even harder to level them by reducing their damage is too much of a nerf imo.
I really like the ramping multi-hex attacks for the Sun Singers and Sun Sylphs. It adds a new strategic layer to how you use those units as opposed to a normal mage unit.
I also suggest buffing the health of the Archer and Marksman units. Between their weapon weakness against Undead and how easily killed they are with their low health they are basically never considered a better option than a Pathfinder and Outrider given their ability to slow with ranged impact weapons.
I strongly suggest drastically reducing the health and cost of the Protector. The cost on Nightmare difficulty makes it completely unviable for consideration, which also makes the Stalwart not worth consideration either. Make it something like 90 cost and 80 hp.
I also strongly suggest nerfing Nym's Rain of Arrows and Toxic Rain/Twin Arrows abilities to either have a cooldown just like Kaleh's Piercing Shot ability or reduced damage. It's just so absurdly powerful that it warps the game and makes other options vastly inferior considerations until you get those abilities first. I don't know if this was the intention, but it feels like that ability was added to balance the campaign's difficulty. In my view, each scenario is vastly different in difficulty based on whether you have that ability or not.
I appreciate people reading and all the effort made towards making this campaign one of the best and most fun campaigns I've played.
Thank you!
I like the idea of having multiple attacks per unit to split up, but functionally speaking I almost never used the Fighter, Warrior, and Champion ones. You get too much retaliation damage for it to be worth using unless you have a high chance to hit and the single hit will kill a unit. I think upping the parry %, especially as you level up is worth considering as a way to improve its usage. The other option is creating a single ranged attack like the Loyalist spearman unit to provide some minimal retaliation on ranged attacks. That might require further rebalancing the unit, but I think it is worth it to make those attacks more practically useful for players.
The Flanker and Ranger ranged attacks work because there are plenty of units with no ranged attack or only a very weak one that makes it worthwhile to use compared to the melee ones for the other 3.
I suggest reverting the damage nerfs to the Mystic class back to 4x2 melee and 3x2 ranged. The tailwind ability is a fun addition, but Mystics are by far the weakest level 1 unit by cost and making it even harder to level them by reducing their damage is too much of a nerf imo.
I really like the ramping multi-hex attacks for the Sun Singers and Sun Sylphs. It adds a new strategic layer to how you use those units as opposed to a normal mage unit.
I also suggest buffing the health of the Archer and Marksman units. Between their weapon weakness against Undead and how easily killed they are with their low health they are basically never considered a better option than a Pathfinder and Outrider given their ability to slow with ranged impact weapons.
I strongly suggest drastically reducing the health and cost of the Protector. The cost on Nightmare difficulty makes it completely unviable for consideration, which also makes the Stalwart not worth consideration either. Make it something like 90 cost and 80 hp.
I also strongly suggest nerfing Nym's Rain of Arrows and Toxic Rain/Twin Arrows abilities to either have a cooldown just like Kaleh's Piercing Shot ability or reduced damage. It's just so absurdly powerful that it warps the game and makes other options vastly inferior considerations until you get those abilities first. I don't know if this was the intention, but it feels like that ability was added to balance the campaign's difficulty. In my view, each scenario is vastly different in difficulty based on whether you have that ability or not.
I appreciate people reading and all the effort made towards making this campaign one of the best and most fun campaigns I've played.
Thank you!