Era of Magic (EoMa) 4.6.2 - now on Ko-fi!

It's not easy creating an entire faction or era. Post your work and collaborate in this forum.

Moderator: Forum Moderators

Post Reply
User avatar
inferno8
Art Contributor
Posts: 974
Joined: February 18th, 2008, 5:32 pm
Location: The Abyss

Re: Era of Magic (EoMa) 3.12.2 - 2022 Summary

Post by inferno8 »

@IPS: Your descriptions for Runemasters seem ok, but will require some grammar and stylistic corrections. You decided to focus on their equipment and explained how it worked etc., which was a reasonable solution, especially since I haven't provided lore for the faction. Now I think that I should reveal it to make writing their descriptions easier for those who are interested :hmm:

In fact, Runemasters' lore exists since 2018. It was a time, when I was seriously considering making a TLU prequel - Broken Steel - the campaign about Runemasters. So at that time I wrote three design documents describing locations, social structure and some key characters. Most of these are outdated but some concepts are still good after all these years and could be reused for descriptions.

Below are fragments of aforementioned design documents describing Runemasters' lore. They may contain spoilers, so read at your own risk.
>>>>Declassified fragments of Broken Steel design document 01 - !! SPOILERS !!:
I have never abandoned this project, to be honest - it is just suspended for the time being. I hope the information above will help others write interesting descriptions. If someone wants to ask questions about lore, they can, but please use spoiler tags.
IPS wrote: January 3rd, 2023, 8:04 am Still, I have no real idea what to do with the Runemaster (Runeaura Active), so I preffer leaving it blank
Yeah, that unit exists for technical purposes only and it should be skipped.
Creator of Era of Magic
Creator of To Lands Unknown

Support me on Ko-fi! https://ko-fi.com/inferno8
User avatar
Atreides
Posts: 1039
Joined: March 30th, 2019, 10:38 pm
Location: On the 2nd story of the centre village of Merwuerdigliebe turning the lights on and off

Re: Era of Magic (EoMa) 3.12.2 - 2022 Summary

Post by Atreides »

inferno8 wrote: January 2nd, 2023, 5:39 pm The quality of descriptions varies greatly. Some are bad but some others are excellent (especially the ones written for Summoners and Barbarians). It would be great, if some talented people offered their help with writing new descriptions or improving the old ones (preferably native speakers or those with excellent language skills).

So dear EoMa fans, if you like writing and you want to contribute to one of the best Wesnoth add-ons, just drop us a line. Who knows, maybe your description will become part of Era of Magic! ;)
That is something that keeps surprising me. I understand however that good descriptions are not that easy to conjure up. One of the hardest parts is knowing the background story. If there is one. Obviously for EoMa one needs to study that closely first.
In any case I might take a crack at it.
User avatar
IPS
Posts: 1278
Joined: December 6th, 2009, 6:36 pm
Location: Venezuela

Re: Era of Magic (EoMa) 3.12.2 - 2022 Summary

Post by IPS »

Just helping just a little bit more, some few more descriptions. Mainly to avoid them being blank and these elements being a part of their later more clever descriptions. Ofc more detail is needed, but just keeping in mind some aspects I find potentially interesting to keep for later versions of unit's descriptions.

With some extra polishing it can become signficantly better :D


Jungle Guard
They are part of elite forces of dark blooded and their main purpose is at keeping the jungle safe of threats. Similarly of Saurians Assasins, their black scales allow them to hide in the shadow of any kind of vegetation.

When guarding the vegetation, they work as the eyes of the dark blooded empire at not loosing any detail in suspicious visitants. While guarding the jungle they can communicate between themselves using an encrypted langauge which from a stranger is indistinguishable from local fauna sounds and usually ambushing by surprise unwanted visitants if they're found as a potentially hostile expedition.


Pain Mistress
While promotion wtiches have two options: strengthen their bond with darkness or serving the cult of pain. Witches that choices joining the cult of pain gain extra physical strength given by dark gods and they become particularly more sadistic. For a better use of their increased strenght they use a whip which makes them be scary executioners in tharis forces.


Matriarch of Pain
Most devoted painmistresses become Matriarchs of Pain. Unlike novices they can smell the pain around them which appart of causing joy it can also help them at regenerating their wounds. Matriarch of Pain enjoys the most participating in hunts in groups of their cult as usually the more the foe suffer before deaths the more fun might be for them, appart of safety reasons as they can even regenerate from the pain of allied forces.
Creator of: Deathmatch new in 1.12 server.
Co-creator of: Era of Magic in 1.16 server
Developer of: Empires in 1.12 server, Ageless Era in 1.10 to 1.16 servers (but innactive recently)
Try My winning Orocia Guide
User avatar
IPS
Posts: 1278
Joined: December 6th, 2009, 6:36 pm
Location: Venezuela

Re: Era of Magic (EoMa) 3.12.2 - 2022 Summary

Post by IPS »

Well, this is another post and an unexpected by me.

While playing a new scenario getting random Ageless, by pure coinsidence I got destroyers ... so I just played it as I would usually do.

To load the replay you will need to download Ultimate Wesnoth Survival add-on which is very fresh and new, uploaded just today lol (which also, goo publicity to new promising scenarios is always good lol)

Only thing I have to mention here is that AE portals are bit stronger than in EoMa as in 2022 it got a -10% ressistance reduction in 4 attack types (also 10% more impact resistant). Still, while not much it allowed me to view that portals just maybe need a very small buff before being ported to Ageless. Even if the buff is quite small, still I would suggest few things.

While not a strong buff it still can of help at helping portals being at higher HP values when resting for more turns and also, unlike in AE infernal vortext to god-mode a wave/swarm of enemies by itself if just gaining few more strikes upgrades as in AE gameplay. This replay is a good example about the potential of Infernal Vortex in combination of XP mod which is usually present in AE gameplay and I was right about not nerfing the unit anymore before testing it more. Reason of buff is because in the same situation an EoMa infernal Vortex would have been slain because of the lowered ressistances, justificable enough as I didn't precisely abuse from this unit at all. Even with the small buff, the unit is significantly weaker than version in AE as ressistances are more valuable because you can just buy +4 HP per 8 XP that this unit gain, while ressistances cannot be adquired that easily.

Other thing is that I have to mention, is a forggoten but very strong unit in EoMa which is ... Perfect Drone :P , I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to nerf this unit as it's very rare to see as it was removed some time ago from EoMa Master's and player cannot find it by leveling up any of their units when playing as Runemasters, whatever, that unit capable to 49%-52% defeat in zerking a lv3 royal guard (loy unit) in plains in +25% ToD which in combination of 7 movemenyt, flying and skirmisher and lots of other things :roll: :lol: , still I would just readapt few things before doing harder intervention to Perfect drones as I'm not sure which are the intentions with that unit.

Balance Propossals

Infernal Vortex
- HP from 48 to 50
- Regeneration from 8 to 9
- Melee damage lower from 18-1 to 17-1
Bit tankier and also can resustain a bit faster, still the melee nerf is insignificant.
This small buffs will just help a bit to vortext to deal a bit better with their severe nerf from 2022's.

Perfect Drone
- Level from lv2 to lv3 (so they give more XP on death , and requires more upkeep)
- AMLA XP from 50 to 150
I don't know the real meaning of this unit, so I preffer not touching much further its stats. But defenetively a not conventional unit.


Edit:
Starting Lv2 / Lv3 / Lv4 Bone Golem leader
It's intended that if starting as leader unit then there will not be Bone Collector special. Still players could potentially bypass this detail with a mod named "switch leader mod" and just using another unit as leader so player would literally bypass this limitation on Bone Collector skill. I also got a solution for this.
- Create an exact unit that is named Bone Golem (and their level ups) but with a different ID, which is intended to be the new starting leader unit when destroyer starts with it as leader.
- Removing +Bone-Collector special
- Adding +Feeding Special to this starting unit
- Adding +3/+4/+5 BloodLust special depending on lv2/lv3/lv4 variation.
So in general, it works as a bone golem but which also can gain some health from killing and players can't trick the limitation of the bone collector by using swith leader mod.

Still if you have any more interesting idea for this very specific case, you're free to consider other options, but this is just my propossal and letting know there is an exception in destroyers starting leader, of an unit that their starting leader is significantly weaker than leveled up a recruited lv1.
Attachments
Ultimate Wesnoth Survival replay 20230105-192045.gz
Edit: quequo updated the scenario, and for some reason owning a newer version will make it crash so early, so detail about infernal vortex cannot be seen ... as only little more than turn 1 to 20 can be seen :(
(140.61 KiB) Downloaded 44 times
Creator of: Deathmatch new in 1.12 server.
Co-creator of: Era of Magic in 1.16 server
Developer of: Empires in 1.12 server, Ageless Era in 1.10 to 1.16 servers (but innactive recently)
Try My winning Orocia Guide
User avatar
inferno8
Art Contributor
Posts: 974
Joined: February 18th, 2008, 5:32 pm
Location: The Abyss

Re: Era of Magic (EoMa) 3.12.2 - 2022 Summary

Post by inferno8 »

IPS wrote: January 6th, 2023, 5:01 am I don't know the real meaning of this unit, so I preffer not touching much further its stats. But defenetively a not conventional unit.
Perfect Drone is a special unit one can get by completely upgrading their standard Drone units. Every time a Drone is upgraded, it "earns" 1 upgrade point. Once the number of upgrade points is greater than 12, the unit becomes the Perfect Drone. Because the requirements are quite high, it is almost impossible to witness a Drone advancing to its perfect variant in a typical MP match. The ability was really meant for campaigns.
IPS wrote: January 6th, 2023, 5:01 am It's intended that if starting as leader unit then there will not be Bone Collector special. Still players could potentially bypass this detail with a mod named "switch leader mod" and just using another unit as leader so player would literally bypass this limitation on Bone Collector skill
Wait, I am not sure if I am getting this right. I just checked it and the 'bone collector' ability is active for leaders of all these unit types by default (but not in RPG mode). I can add a new filter check testing unit's leader status and automatically disable the ability, once that unit becomes a new leader. In other words: I can make the ability not work for units with canrecruit=yes. Not sure if it fixes the problem, but I am not a big fan of making custom unit copies just to solve things like these, to be honest.
If the problem is about Bone Giant leader being far worse than a recruited/leveled-up Bone Giant due to mentioned limitations, then we should probably take a closer look at the current implementation of the bone collector ability and maybe change a few things to make it less overpowered. :hmm:
Creator of Era of Magic
Creator of To Lands Unknown

Support me on Ko-fi! https://ko-fi.com/inferno8
User avatar
IPS
Posts: 1278
Joined: December 6th, 2009, 6:36 pm
Location: Venezuela

Re: Era of Magic (EoMa) 3.12.2 - 2022 Summary

Post by IPS »

Well, contunuing with the bone golem debate and the bone-collector special, I also can add some facts about the unit.

First point is that bone-collector works like feeding, increasing permanently their maximun HP by 1.

Lv1 bone-collector value is 1/5 of enemy unit that is slain, and average HP on lv1 units are around 32 to 35 (still some lv1 fighter can be roughly 40's HP), which means that in most situations killing a lv1 unit will reheal Bone Beast by 6 or 7 HP and in case of highest common values might be around +8 healing which occurs in very specific cases.

Lv2 Bone-collector value is 1/5 too, and usually opposing units have a larger margin of HP that usually is around 40 to 55 HP, meaning that very common values on slaying a lv2 unit will be around 8 HP to 11 HP which are quite high values (yeap, more than one village/healing turn).

Lv3 Bone-collector value is higher at being 1/4 , which really is an high value. Talking about killing common lv3 units their HP are frequently around 55 to 75 as most common values meaning these will heal this unit by WOAH! an aproximate margin 14 HP to 19 HP and still , some lv3 being capable to heal this unit by more than 20 HP from a single Lv3 kill !! which is indeed more than two turns of passive regenerating. We can add 20% more healing in case of lv1 and lv2 kills in previous shown cases

Lv4 Bone-Collector value becomes really high 1/3 , indeed values that are really high. Cannot give an approximate mount of an average lv4 unit HP's, but saying that we kill something that is 85 HP we get a massive healing of +28 HP on this only kill (also, wasting 24 XP we could use to train another destroyer army unit).


Yeap, the potential healing from this unit is really high, mostly if we consider that AI will never take into consideration this type of healing after it losses units agianist Bone Moloch, leaving the weird situation that AI opponent wanting to damage enemy unit instead it heals it even more at never counting this into consideration. This gains higher weight considering facts that in some Scenarios (Orocia, and some other) units can get an extra ranged attack for this unit, and in combination of XP mod it can lead the unit to kill at both melee and ranged. Realising that player starting with this unit losses this big feature is a big reason to loud about this situation as it's indeed kind of dissadventageful starting with this unit as leader.

So in conclusion for Bone Moloch line:
- Some increase in HP or stats when player dares using this unit as leader (kind of buff trait, as sometimes used in the era)
- Decrease the value of +bone-collector is indeed a better option for everything else balance.
- Combining +scavenger with smaller values of +bone-collector could work.
- Unit wihtout specials is viable to use, thing I wanted to prove but replay broken. Still hiring more of this makes player offensive strength to weaken in comparation of gaining more Nightmares for example.
- Unit is actually appreciated by AE community because of the nuke 1 strike attack at higher levels, with XP mod gaining extra strikes help this unit to become a really insane unit (same as Cyclops Mage, but much tankier), otherwise it's just more defensive and harder to use atopki.

Fact is that healing skills that occurs after AI's damage calculation can also force AI to do dumber things that by its calculus are correct but at failing so hard because of the extra HP unit gains after killing or after AI interactions, which is an issue that occurs with very few units even in AE content.

Btw, Bone Moloch XP mod abuse is rare to be seen in AE gameplay, people preffers doing this with that instead with AE infernal Vortex because of the higher accuracy and having melee and ranged as base stats and also some better movement costs meaning it's as well more mobible.
Creator of: Deathmatch new in 1.12 server.
Co-creator of: Era of Magic in 1.16 server
Developer of: Empires in 1.12 server, Ageless Era in 1.10 to 1.16 servers (but innactive recently)
Try My winning Orocia Guide
User avatar
Ravana
Forum Moderator
Posts: 2934
Joined: January 29th, 2012, 12:49 am
Location: Estonia
Contact:

Re: Era of Magic (EoMa) 3.12.2 - 2022 Summary

Post by Ravana »

You could give it fixed healing amount instead of %. Then it would be suitable for leader too. Or to keep current theme, % of enemy, but not more than specific amount.
User avatar
inferno8
Art Contributor
Posts: 974
Joined: February 18th, 2008, 5:32 pm
Location: The Abyss

Re: Era of Magic (EoMa) 3.12.2 - 2022 Summary

Post by inferno8 »

Ravana wrote: January 7th, 2023, 10:25 am You could give it fixed healing amount instead of %. Then it would be suitable for leader too. Or to keep current theme, % of enemy, but not more than specific amount.
Ravana's right. The more I think about it, the more I realize that using percentages for such healing abilities was a bad gameplay design from the start, as it can easily get out of control. I believe that using a fixed healing amount would fix a lot of issues here. Something like Wyvern's "swallow" weapon special, but also working on undead and mechanical units. The ability would be renamed to just "collector +{VALUE}" and it's description would be like: "This unit gains {VALUE} hitpoints added to its current health whenever it kills a non-magical unit. It also gains +1 max hp with each successful kill of a non-magical unit."

I'd go with these values for different levels:
Lvl1 Bone Beast: "Collector +1" (heals 1HP on successful kill + 1 max hp)
Lvl2 Bone Golem: "Collector +2" (heals 2HP on successful kill + 1 max hp)
Lvl3 Bone Giant: "Collector +3" (heals 3HP on successful kill + 1 max hp)
Lvl4 Bone Moloch: "Collector +4" (heals 4HP on successful kill + 1 max hp)
...or we could use uniform +2 or +3 for all levels.

I think such low values shouldn't break balance and would be suitable for leaders, but I'd like to know your opinion guys.

@Ravana: before you start porting new EoMa content to AE I advise you to wait for this issue to be resolved first.
Creator of Era of Magic
Creator of To Lands Unknown

Support me on Ko-fi! https://ko-fi.com/inferno8
User avatar
IPS
Posts: 1278
Joined: December 6th, 2009, 6:36 pm
Location: Venezuela

Re: Era of Magic (EoMa) 3.12.2 - 2022 Summary

Post by IPS »

inferno8 wrote: January 7th, 2023, 11:15 am
I'd go with these values for different levels:
Lvl1 Bone Beast: "Collector +1" (heals 1HP on successful kill + 1 max hp)
Lvl2 Bone Golem: "Collector +2" (heals 2HP on successful kill + 1 max hp)
Lvl3 Bone Giant: "Collector +3" (heals 3HP on successful kill + 1 max hp)
Lvl4 Bone Moloch: "Collector +4" (heals 4HP on successful kill + 1 max hp)
...or we could use uniform +2 or +3 for all levels.

I think such low values shouldn't break balance and would be suitable for leaders, but I'd like to know your opinion guys.
Sounds rasonable, also maybe add some +Scavenger special, which would also be flat mounts instead of porcentual, but in minor grades.

Lv1 Bone Beast: Scavenger +1
Lv2 Bone Golem: Scavenger +2
Lv3 Bone Giant: Scavenger +2
Lv4 Bone Moloch: Scavenger +2

Giving the unit the potential to also heal a bit whenever anything dies next to it can help it slightly , consdering that in many cases it's more probable that any other destroyer unit kill enemies instead of Bone Golem because of higher damage / accuracy differencies. Even with all values, from a single kill this unit cannot heal itself higher than 8 which is fair just that the more it levels the harder it will be for it to be at maximun health considering in late game there will be stronger foes.

Also another question is , Collector special will be an unit feature or an attack special? because it will even be allowed to get a ranged weapon and getting healed by killing enemies using a ranged attack.

Also I think that unit with both Collector and Scavenger can do well even with almost no stats alteration, but some test will be needed to judge correctly, just that doing a single stronger nerf is way too strong, but there were cases for which it was needed.

Still just to mention, I still remember that a long ago I've lowered wyvern's swallow value by -25% becoming their actual values because it allowed the unit to literally be immortal againist AI spawns beause the flat value was bit too high :P


Lastly, I've realized of something absolutely forgotten. It's about Cyclops Warmonger and Cyclops Goliath and their high AoD death special. I think to make it be less devastating for both allies and enemies, lowering just a bit these values would be more correct .... because just think furious death (21) is 21 damage PER unit next to it, which in many cases it can be more than 100 DMG if only 5 units! which is INSANE!

Cyclops Warmonger --- furious death value decrease from 15 to 10
Cyclops Goliath --- furious death value decrease from 21 to 14

And not sure, Cleave values are still high (50% & 66% , for units that can be 24-2 and 31-2) which is an insane output of damage. Maybe lower the percentages to 40% and 50%)

Goblin Invader AMLA XP from 110 to 126 (standararization)


Also will be thinking later in ideas to make barbarians more attractive for player base, as I've said in a previous post, reason why barbarians are impopular in EoMa player base is because players thinks that "they're not as strong as other factions" (which translated to more technical speech, barbarians not having increased ressistances units nor too many attack specials that players consider attractive) even if they really have attack specials such as tons of hit-run , some berserking , growing fury, (recently, slows and stun too) and even AoD abilties.

Maybe some new units some time later? :lol:
Barbarians used to have the highest recuirtment list just after summoners before the addition of new units (which surprisingly, the only faction that did not get new units in 2022's)

In my criteria Barbarians are fine, just that AE community likes to cheese plays at abusing with few (2-4 different units only) spam and expecting to have good ressults, which were the core reason why certain units in EoMa got significantly nerfed as idea is that players are forced to diversificate more for fairly better ressults. Let's hope that our excentritc new Goblin Wizard increases popularity in Barbarians gameplay :lol:

Edit:
Roc Master impact ressistance from -20% to -10%
Being 50% defense instead of 60% unlike cosmic eyes makes this unit more fragible in overall. Also a tons of new units have impact attacks.
Creator of: Deathmatch new in 1.12 server.
Co-creator of: Era of Magic in 1.16 server
Developer of: Empires in 1.12 server, Ageless Era in 1.10 to 1.16 servers (but innactive recently)
Try My winning Orocia Guide
User avatar
inferno8
Art Contributor
Posts: 974
Joined: February 18th, 2008, 5:32 pm
Location: The Abyss

Re: Era of Magic (EoMa) 3.12.2 - 2022 Summary

Post by inferno8 »

IPS wrote: January 7th, 2023, 6:55 pm Sounds rasonable, also maybe add some +Scavenger special
Ok, we can try it out. It fits the theme of the unit after all, but I have a feeling, the ability combo (collector+scavenger) might turn out OP. It will need some testing, especially in RPG mode.
IPS wrote: January 7th, 2023, 6:55 pm Also another question is , Collector special will be an unit feature or an attack special? because it will even be allowed to get a ranged weapon and getting healed by killing enemies using a ranged attack.
Well, I think it would be better to make it a weapon special instead of an ability to prevent certain abuses.
IPS wrote: January 7th, 2023, 6:55 pm Also will be thinking later in ideas to make barbarians more attractive for player base, as I've said in a previous post, reason why barbarians are impopular in EoMa player base is because players thinks that "they're not as strong as other factions"
Well, Era of Magic players mostly expect magic-oriented factions from the add-on, which is completely understandable. In 2021 there were two extremely popular factions: Summoners and Sky Kingdom. What they have in common is the fact that both are totally bursting with magic. Barbarians are the least magical faction of all, but I personally really like them. Making a campaign about them would certainly boost their popularity, but that's not on my TODO list for 2023, so we will have to think about something else. Don't forget we still haven't seen the EoMa 2022 MP report yet - I wouldn't be surprised to see faction popularity reshuffle, especially after all recent updates.
It looks like Pentarctagon has uploaded the Multiplayer Activity Report for December, so I think EoMa MP report will be ready tomorrow. :)
IPS wrote: January 7th, 2023, 6:55 pm And not sure, Cleave values are still high (50% & 66% , for units that can be 24-2 and 31-2) which is an insane output of damage. Maybe lower the percentages to 40% and 50%)
I am afraid we won't go far with boosting Barbarians popularity by nerfing the faction :lol: But you might be right about the cleave special.
IPS wrote: January 7th, 2023, 6:55 pm Maybe some new units some time later? :lol:
Barbarians used to have the highest recuirtment list just after summoners before the addition of new units (which surprisingly, the only faction that did not get new units in 2022's)
There's always room for new units as long it makes sense. Here's the current unit count table for 3.12.2:
units-3.12.jpg
units-3.12.jpg (23.74 KiB) Viewed 949 times
Summoners didn't receive new content in 2022 because they already have the largest number of units of all EoMa factions. I don't think they need more at the moment.
IPS wrote: January 7th, 2023, 6:55 pm Let's hope that our excentritc new Goblin Wizard increases popularity in Barbarians gameplay :lol:
I gave him a very cool wizard hat for that purpose, should help a lot! :lol:
Creator of Era of Magic
Creator of To Lands Unknown

Support me on Ko-fi! https://ko-fi.com/inferno8
User avatar
IPS
Posts: 1278
Joined: December 6th, 2009, 6:36 pm
Location: Venezuela

Re: Era of Magic (EoMa) 3.12.2 - 2022 Summary

Post by IPS »

Bone Golem do not need of any sustain specials in RPG, it counts with better ressistances in higher level and a very potent 33-1 / 44-1 weapon in lv3 and lv4, and in RPG is much easier gaining extra strikes which usually will cost the gold of 3.5 times the price of +1 damage upgrade, so the unit will in most cases be high melee impact DPS damage unit in RPG.

About new units in barbarian faction, takes some time to conceptualize something viable and rasonable that is fairly balanced, so not yet for today :lol:

Also other relevant topic is that I do not want a lv3 upgrade for Lv2 Roc Master as it would instantly kill the popularity in all melee goblins (pierce in melee, flying, huge movement, players already love this unit). It's even more probable that there might be an option B for lv2 advancement for Roc Riders, but as soon I find something interesting will be posting here. Even precisely gift lv3 goblin invader a torch to deal with this problem.

I'm even thinking about any kind of special to allow Lv3 warmonger to take less damage when used in offensive (melee attack special), but problem is that giving it +Dauntless is way too strong as cyclops have no weaknesses unlike crimson atokpi or bladefury (point that matters a lot in optional game mode as of Orocia scenario), +Dread neither is a viable option because a 1/3 less retaliation with attacks that are fair 24-2 / 33-1 is too devastating. +Shielded also does not make sense just because of skill's name lol ... as well as its values are maybe too low to be notisable in Warmonger unlike in Kharosian Legionarie.

Other viable option is giving Lv2 druid and Lv2 wizard a lv3 advancement, as usually people avoids getting units with usually lv2 max level caps (unless they're roc masters lol). Lv3 goblin invader is a good example how a goblin can properly get stats increases and still look like gobbo (low base HP, more agility oriented, higher defenses in bad terrains), even with stuff like that it's possible to give a lv3 version of both goblin magicians.

Still it woul be weird that a lv3 gobling be too high ranged damages, so their lv3 advancements wouldn't be a very efficient choice but still present as options (also properly pricing for era of master's is also another detail...): Goblin Raider got some buffs precisely to help it to be more popular or useful whenever player considers them ... but giving them 50% flat defense is way too strong considering it's somewhat deadly in ranged unlike of goblin invader (maybe also buffing this unit's worst terrain defense to +10% with the exception of flat could work).

But the main topic is that people do not like barbarians that much because of previous points, usually ignoring AE goblins in Barbarians because Roc Rider is already a STRONG unit with severe nerfs in recent EoMa ... as cyclops and trolls are popular enough. Orcs are kinda ignored by many in AE gameplay because they're very defaultish which is a different reason to be impopular.

So in resume, most probable is that I will be thinking in an option B for lv2 roc rider and maybe lv3 version for both goblin magi. And potentially gaining move_type of Lv3 Goblin invader to Lv3 Goblin Raider with the only difference of being 40% at flat. Giving +10% defense just in worst tiles cannot be considered OP anyhow but bonuses are bonuses :lol:
Creator of: Deathmatch new in 1.12 server.
Co-creator of: Era of Magic in 1.16 server
Developer of: Empires in 1.12 server, Ageless Era in 1.10 to 1.16 servers (but innactive recently)
Try My winning Orocia Guide
User avatar
Ravana
Forum Moderator
Posts: 2934
Joined: January 29th, 2012, 12:49 am
Location: Estonia
Contact:

Re: Era of Magic (EoMa) 3.12.2 - 2022 Summary

Post by Ravana »

inferno8 wrote: January 7th, 2023, 11:15 am @Ravana: before you start porting new EoMa content to AE I advise you to wait for this issue to be resolved first.
Update is automated, so can be done whenever you say its time. https://github.com/ProditorMagnus/Agele ... ertEoMa.py
I already changed few macro names which had changed and were referenced from rest of ageless.
User avatar
inferno8
Art Contributor
Posts: 974
Joined: February 18th, 2008, 5:32 pm
Location: The Abyss

Re: Era of Magic (EoMa) 3.12.2 - 2022 MP Activity Report

Post by inferno8 »

Era of Magic 2022 MP Activity Report is now available!

As I promised, here's the latest EoMa MP Report for 2022. It answers a few interesting questions regarding popularity of factions and trends. It is the second such report in the history of the add-on. You can read the first one (for 2021) here: viewtopic.php?p=675934#p675934

NOTE: the report was based on 2022 Multiplayer Activity Report posted by Pentarctagon here: viewtopic.php?t=55389
IMPORTANT: the report also includes Ageless Era data, because EoMa is part of it. Due to some technical limitations it was impossible for me to separate that data, because Ageless variants of EoMa factions use the same faction ids as EoMa does - and because of this fact the official MP report provided by Pentarctagon automatically combined AE and EoMa side count data preventing me from making a detailed analysis. @Ravana: if you're reading this, it would be a good idea to add AE_mag_ prefix to all EoMa factions in AE, like you did for Summoners and Tharis. Adding game mode suffix like _rpg or _aoh would also help a lot.

Era popularity:
2022-table.png
Players chose EoMa factions more often in 2022 than in 2021 (+14.79%) which is a good result. This growth could be a result of new EoMa content (37 new units), a successful EoMa advertising campaign on Discord or the game simply becoming more popular in the previous year.

Factions popularity:
To measure faction popularity I used "factions by side count" data from the official MP report. Here are the results (the red horizontal line is the arithmetic average):
2022-all-modes.png
2022-all-modes-change.png
Destroyers were the most popular EoMa faction in 2022 (1st place - side count: 3213). This hasn't changed since 2021, but what's really interesting is the fact, that Destroyers have become even more popular (+26%) than the rest of the factions. I think the reason for this was that they got 7 new units in 2022 and this alone boosted their popularity a lot.
After Destroyers there are 3 factions with very similar popularity: Sky Kingdom, Summoners and Kharos (average side count: 2720). Speaking of Kharos, the faction became more popular in 2022 - they got 6 new units after all and it really payed off.
But the main star of 2022 were ...Runemasters! The popularity of this faction skyrocketed by 29.5%. Like Destroyers, they also got 7 new units in 2022 (including the iconic Battlecopter).
Runemasters beat the Darkblood Alliance now ranked 7th (-2). Interestingly, this faction also received a popularity boost but it was minor (+9%).
The least popular faction in 2022 were Barbarians (again) but I'd like to point out that Barbarians are doing their best to catch up with the rest of the competition - they received quite an impressive popularity boost +19.5% compared to the year before.

RPG mode:
2022-rpg.png
Because most players use Ageless Era for RPG it was impossible for me to extract detailed data from official reports due to the faction id issue I mentioned in the beginning of this post. The chart above shows only the data for the pure Era of Magic (RPG) but it still provides some interesting insight. First of all the popularity of this mode ...exploded? I am not really sure what happened there but there were 5 times more rpg games using EoMa's built-in rpg sub-era in 2022 than in 2021 :shock: I suspect it was probably due to Ageless rpg component being outdated and thus not having new EoMa units. But fortunately this may change soon.
It turns out Runemasters were the most popular EoMa RPG faction in 2022, which was totally unexpected. Previously they were ranked 3rd.

I decided to skip "Age of Heroes" and "Masters" analysis this time, because these are not as popular as classic and rpg modes. Instead I have something new - a special chart showing faction trends for each month of 2022.
2022-monthly.png
As you can see, Destroyers are clearly the winner here. Also, a positive upward trend is visible for most factions, which is really nice.

Conclusion:
The year 2022 was very special for the Era of Magic. New units designed by the community definitely boosted popularity of some factions. Kharos, Runemasters and Destroyers have become much more popular now. Positive trends can be seen for other factions as well.
Destroyers are becoming too popular in my opinion and this could pose a real threat to other factions. Still this popularity boost could be a result of new content and it might naturally return to average in 2023. Still it would be good to identify factors of such incredible popularity and maybe use that knowledge to improve other factions.
Barbarians clearly need more attention in 2023. I think that adding a few magic-oriented units would help the faction a lot. I've been thinking a lot about them for the last few days and I am considering adding "Cyclops Mages" to the faction (yes, the ones who everyone thinks are extinct). A new unit line consisting of 3-4 new units (even up to lvl4 if necessary) with some interesting auras and abilities. Though, muscular, extremely intelligent and skilled magic users. Maybe I'll post some ideas soon. Feel free to post yours if you want :)
Creator of Era of Magic
Creator of To Lands Unknown

Support me on Ko-fi! https://ko-fi.com/inferno8
User avatar
Ravana
Forum Moderator
Posts: 2934
Joined: January 29th, 2012, 12:49 am
Location: Estonia
Contact:

Re: Era of Magic (EoMa) 3.12.2 - 2022 MP Activity Report

Post by Ravana »

I had to add identifier for summoners and tharis to solve conflicts. I prefect to keep faction ids constant for all era variants since they are used for random specific era faction. https://github.com/ProditorMagnus/Agele ... ra.cfg#L29 https://github.com/ProditorMagnus/Agele ... ts.cfg#L26

If we add EoMa_ to factions it will be handled by existing conversion rule already.

I asked Pentarctagon to include era in factions sheet. That should solve all use cases without our adjustments.
User avatar
IPS
Posts: 1278
Joined: December 6th, 2009, 6:36 pm
Location: Venezuela

Re: Era of Magic (EoMa) 3.12.2 - 2022 MP Activity Report

Post by IPS »

Yo, been a real while since my previous post. This is just a quick balance propossals while not as extended as in other posts because I would really like the outcome of all previously suggested before viewing if more adjustment are requiered for specific units.

While as for others units seems correct trying a change.


Balance propossal

Kharosian Impaler
- Mountain movement cost from 3 to 2
- Frozen defense from 20% to 30%
- Sand defense from 30% to 40%
Additionally, on this post I will give some extra lore/description to unit , which if not enough to suit it completely, might help at describing better this unit.

Inspired
- Frozen defense from 20% to 40% (no defense handicap)
- Frozen movement cost from 3 to 2
The other option completely flies at 50% defense and 1 movement cost, let's help this option a little bit more.

Shadow Mage
- Cursed Knives damage damage from 7-3 to 8-3
- Can now walk on deep-water (3 MP cost and 30% defense).
Unit is high of specials, but talking about damages it's underperforming unless we're talking about using backstab on units in flat terrain on night time. Void mage is a formidable competence. Still pierce damage buff is valuable for sky kingdom which is very welcome.

Additionally lv3 void mage can float in deep water with even better ressistances and less movement cost requeriments than buffed Shadow Mage.



Kharosian Impaler description
The tittle of impaler is gift to the best javalineers of Kharos. Their swift equipment allows them to be more agile and cover more area in the battlefield which is very helpful when requiring of quick reinforcement and when change of plans are needed in battlefield. Their coats protects them from enemy arrows very well while not limitating the movement of their elite soldiers which is required to perform effectiveness with the traditional arts of javelineers. Additionally they're equiped with magic wards which absorb part of upcoming magic damage.
Creator of: Deathmatch new in 1.12 server.
Co-creator of: Era of Magic in 1.16 server
Developer of: Empires in 1.12 server, Ageless Era in 1.10 to 1.16 servers (but innactive recently)
Try My winning Orocia Guide
Post Reply