Balance changes for 1.18

Discussion of all aspects of multiplayer development: unit balancing, map development, server development, and so forth.

Moderator: Forum Moderators

User avatar
Yomar
Posts: 392
Joined: October 27th, 2011, 5:14 am
Contact:

Re: Balance changes for 1.18

Post by Yomar »

If we talk about squishy, then the mage is the kimg, lol.
Would be nice to see him having at least one extea HP at least not so many units would single handely kil him.
Usually you need at least 2 units to kill, but this extra frail unit is one shotted by various units when it's not even their favourite time of the day.
Beholded Wesnoth's Origins.
Max G on WIF
Rank 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
User avatar
Elvish_Hunter
Posts: 1575
Joined: September 4th, 2009, 2:39 pm
Location: Lintanir Forest...

Re: Balance changes for 1.18

Post by Elvish_Hunter »

Lord-Knightmare wrote: May 6th, 2023, 5:26 am
General - hp changed from 50 to 55, cost changed from 54 to 66, xp changed from 180 to 105.
I like seeing this squishy unit get some attention finally. Will the level 4 (Grand Marshal) be buffed as well? Seems weird the level 6 will get only +5 HP +1 damage to each now.
This is what happened in 1.5.7 to the Sergeant line:

Code: Select all

   * Decreased the cost of the Sergeant from 20 to 19.
   * Decreased the HP of the Sergeant from 36 to 32.
   * Decreased the HP of the Lieutenant from 48 to 40.
   * Decreased the melee attack of the Lieutenant from 9-3 to 8-3.
   * Decreased the HP of the General from 58 to 50.
   * Decreased the HP of the Grand Marshal from 68 to 60.
I guess they were weakened too much back then and now it's time to give them some more HPs, but how many? Maybe 33 or 34 for the Sergeant, 44 for the Lieutenant and 66 for the Grand Marshal?
Current maintainer of these add-ons, all on 1.16:
The Sojournings of Grog, Children of Dragons, A Rough Life, Wesnoth Lua Pack, The White Troll (co-author)
User avatar
Hejnewar
Posts: 239
Joined: September 17th, 2016, 11:01 am

Re: Balance changes for 1.18

Post by Hejnewar »

Lieu buff is no.

GM I forgot about and was added, Sergeant was also added (but no buff). It is actually kinda weird because looking at mp it should be buffed but at campaigns not really (there are no 0 lvl in loy mp), so In guess some buff could be okay.
A bit confused with the "180 to 180" part.
Was changed is no longer changed.
User avatar
Yomar
Posts: 392
Joined: October 27th, 2011, 5:14 am
Contact:

Re: Balance changes for 1.18

Post by Yomar »

This remembers me also that the bowman was nerfed, he used to have 6-2 melee, so now he will just have back one 1 pt of damage.
Beholded Wesnoth's Origins.
Max G on WIF
Rank 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
User avatar
Krogen
Posts: 310
Joined: January 1st, 2013, 3:43 pm

Re: Balance changes for 1.18

Post by Krogen »

In multiplayer high level units currently appear on Afterlife Rated more than the rest of the games combined. What it taught me about lvl 3s was:
- Loyalist
Royal Guard shines the most for what you have to invest to achieve it and the rest are doing okay aswell. Other than HI none of them is particulary terrible. Mage lvl 3s are rarely seen, but they are already so good at lvl 2 that it doesn't really worth the investment when you have xp mod.
- Rebels
This is where the surprising stuff is. By far the best and most efficient lvl ups in the game, both lvl 2 and lvl 3. Captain and Hero lines hold up well, but they wouldn't be terribly overpowered. On the other hand, Archer and Shaman lvl ups are just absolutely outshine almost everything. And they all work together as a faction exceptionally well. Their only "bad" level up is the wose line. A well-built late game Rebel army is just better than what the rest has to offer. Their stuff is just superior when it comes down to it.
- Northerners
Underwhelming lvl 3s, they don't hold a candle to other factions.
- Undead
Lich is good and achievable. Ghost line would also be good, but they have ridiculous xp requirements and with xp mod allowed their lvl 3s are almost never seen. The rest are underwhelming.
- Knalgans
Lord is still the best, but with it nerfed, we get to see the rest aswell and even ignoring xp mod they still do reasonably well. Even the outlaws in some cases, though that have a noticeably lower value.
- Drakes
Kickass lvl 3s, not a single bad one, but that's to be expected. Though they have areas where they lack and can be defeated.

Sure xp mod makes a hell of a difference, but even without it, after more than 60.000. games played with Afterlife Rated, it's worth to take a look at it. Now those level 3 buffs for Rebels make me kinda uneasy. They already don't have a single bad matchup. And they have everything. Self-healing poison-immune tank (ok, its technically a bad unit but works well with the rest), multiple healers, multiple magical dmg dealers, marksman damage dealer, high defense forest tank, reliable slow, leadership, units with high damage/low strikes, units with low damage/high strikes. Also every dmg type except cold, every unit except scout and wose have lvl up options. It becomes a different faction from lvl 1 to 2 essentially. Their only lvl up that's the "same but stronger" is the wose, in every other case they get something extra, even scout has some improved defenses. It seems to me that Rebels already dominate the lvl 3 game.
"A lion doesn't concern himself with the opinions of the sheep." - Tywin Lannister
User avatar
IPS
Posts: 1278
Joined: December 6th, 2009, 6:36 pm
Location: Venezuela

Re: Balance changes for 1.18

Post by IPS »

Krogen wrote: May 8th, 2023, 9:23 pm In multiplayer high level units currently appear on Afterlife Rated more than the rest of the games combined. What it taught me about lvl 3s was:
- Loyalist
Royal Guard shines the most for what you have to invest to achieve it and the rest are doing okay aswell. Other than HI none of them is particulary terrible. Mage lvl 3s are rarely seen, but they are already so good at lvl 2 that it doesn't really worth the investment when you have xp mod.
- Rebels
This is where the surprising stuff is. By far the best and most efficient lvl ups in the game, both lvl 2 and lvl 3. Captain and Hero lines hold up well, but they wouldn't be terribly overpowered. On the other hand, Archer and Shaman lvl ups are just absolutely outshine almost everything. And they all work together as a faction exceptionally well. Their only "bad" level up is the wose line. A well-built late game Rebel army is just better than what the rest has to offer. Their stuff is just superior when it comes down to it.
- Northerners
Underwhelming lvl 3s, they don't hold a candle to other factions.
- Undead
Lich is good and achievable. Ghost line would also be good, but they have ridiculous xp requirements and with xp mod allowed their lvl 3s are almost never seen. The rest are underwhelming.
- Knalgans
Lord is still the best, but with it nerfed, we get to see the rest aswell and even ignoring xp mod they still do reasonably well. Even the outlaws in some cases, though that have a noticeably lower value.
- Drakes
Kickass lvl 3s, not a single bad one, but that's to be expected. Though they have areas where they lack and can be defeated.

Sure xp mod makes a hell of a difference, but even without it, after more than 60.000. games played with Afterlife Rated, it's worth to take a look at it. Now those level 3 buffs for Rebels make me kinda uneasy. They already don't have a single bad matchup. And they have everything. Self-healing poison-immune tank (ok, its technically a bad unit but works well with the rest), multiple healers, multiple magical dmg dealers, marksman damage dealer, high defense forest tank, reliable slow, leadership, units with high damage/low strikes, units with low damage/high strikes. Also every dmg type except cold, every unit except scout and wose have lvl up options. It becomes a different faction from lvl 1 to 2 essentially. Their only lvl up that's the "same but stronger" is the wose, in every other case they get something extra, even scout has some improved defenses. It seems to me that Rebels already dominate the lvl 3 game.
Problem with that afterlife map is that because of its size it cannot be a correct criteria to consider, just favours way too much too specific units while others that in other situations are needed are nearly useless because of the poor map design.

Small sized map which all villages are 4 or even 5 tiles away each other, in there, movement costs matter even more than movement points. It's no surprise that on that specific map the brainless spam of steelclad works well because it's a very complete unit because oddly it does better in flat than average unit beuase 30% physical ressists is too much, just imagine if it's just placed in 60/70% terrain defenses, gamebreaking ... and Loy/UD/Rebels/Drakes can't go intense with magic spam because ulfseker is extremely powerful in that scenario. Just to mention few things that are very broken in that afterlife map (there are much better afterlife variants, but are bigger and people wouldn't join them that often because of much larger games).

Other point is that because of map size, lawful/chaotic factions suffer by not having enough space to fall back and mitigate damage and are forced to engage with deadly -25% ToD for TWO turns which in a map of that size, game length and waves being too close each other, 2 turns is really too much time.

And just to mention, Afterlife will defenetively need an altered/modified Default Era just for that rankeds/gamemode becaue with the new balance changes some matchups will be even more unfair than how they're now (but atleast, there will not be aberrations that are easy win as getting Knalgan in there).


But I kinda agree with you in some points, rebels will become really dominant with these changes and probably the best late/endgame faction in default era, place that previously was owned by loyalists then Knalga (just because Rebels were pretty much expensive in XP and their lv3 not being worth that tons of XP's). Just hope that as you've mentioned, they do something to orcs, they underperform in most gamemodes even in 2023 ... and hopefully UD gets fixed from that abyss of underpoweremnt they used to be in.

And no, not just in Default ecosystem northeners and UD does worse than rest of default, they do even in Ageless ecosystem which both factions are few of the real C tier factions you can pick on there while loys in same ecosystem can easily be rated A+ because of magical, ressistances, much more consistency and healers. While orcs have nearly no ressistances to anything, UD extreme weaknesses that makes them unviable in many situations ... as Hajenvar said, they likely need more units to fix balance issues and personally I hated UD pretty much becaue they're slower and in overall akward to use because of XP waste, extreme weaknesses and few other flaws that some of them will get fixed in 1.18's.
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
Hejnewar
Posts: 239
Joined: September 17th, 2016, 11:01 am

Re: Balance changes for 1.18

Post by Hejnewar »

Krogen wrote: May 8th, 2023, 9:23 pm - Loyalist
Royal Guard shines the most for what you have to invest to achieve it and the rest are doing okay aswell. Other than HI none of them is particulary terrible. Mage lvl 3s are rarely seen, but they are already so good at lvl 2 that it doesn't really worth the investment when you have xp mod.
Fixed. Pretty much.
- Rebels
This is where the surprising stuff is. By far the best and most efficient lvl ups in the game, both lvl 2 and lvl 3. Captain and Hero lines hold up well, but they wouldn't be terribly overpowered. On the other hand, Archer and Shaman lvl ups are just absolutely outshine almost everything. And they all work together as a faction exceptionally well. Their only "bad" level up is the wose line. A well-built late game Rebel army is just better than what the rest has to offer. Their stuff is just superior when it comes down to it.
That pretty much convinces me to go for the Guinness world record in the longes balance patchnotes. (Remember I havent even started with core units.) I originally planned to do the Arcane Resistances Rework way later, but there is no harn in doing it earlier as well.
- Northerners
Underwhelming lvl 3s, they don't hold a candle to other factions.
Basically they need new units, I even have concepts of ideas but no time to do like a post or something.
- Undead
Lich is good and achievable. Ghost line would also be good, but they have ridiculous xp requirements and with xp mod allowed their lvl 3s are almost never seen. The rest are underwhelming.
IMO they kinda just lack faction components that woul allow them to play well in the lategame which makes them very polarising.
- Knalgans
Lord is still the best, but with it nerfed, we get to see the rest aswell and even ignoring xp mod they still do reasonably well. Even the outlaws in some cases, though that have a noticeably lower value.
I guess I still prefer using xp more if possible.

there are much better afterlife variants, but are bigger and people wouldn't join them that often because of much larger games
Larger or longer? probably both but if so just increasing the "speed" at which units are copied will fix this.
with the new balance changes some matchups will be even more unfair than how they're now
Which ones?
Hajenvar
Well, thats kinda funny ngl.
User avatar
Krogen
Posts: 310
Joined: January 1st, 2013, 3:43 pm

Re: Balance changes for 1.18

Post by Krogen »

IPS wrote: May 10th, 2023, 5:16 pm Problem with that afterlife map is that because of its size it cannot be a correct criteria to consider, just favours way too much too specific units while others that in other situations are needed are nearly useless because of the poor map design.
The only two occasions I can think of where this is true are scouting units (they don't show their true strength), and the outlaws in the Knalgan faction (dwarves mostly don't need them here, but there are examples to the contrary). Every other unit can give you an accurate idea about their value, you'd be surprised how important movement points are sometimes. Ghouls are still bad, Swordsman is still good, and Sorceress is still brutal. When strengths or weaknesses are caused by the map or game mode, an experienced player can spot that in a blink of an eye and separate it from actual useful information. For example, Troll Rocklobber and Thunderguard only do so well because players can buy them strikes and achieve greater damage output for cheap, but no one would claim they are generally overpowered. But otherwise, those 60.000. something games will really give an accurate idea about what's overpowered and what's not. The Mage, Elvish Archer, and Shaman level-ups are just godlike compared to something like Orcish Warrior, which is otherwise not a bad unit. Those raw stats just make a difference over the course of thousands of games and with countless fights between high-level units in each and every one. Also because it's not just a defensive survival, one gotta think about what's gonna hurt the opponent the most on the other side. Tanks do well generally but they are not the best units. Steelclad was kind of an anomaly, but it has been taken care of and it's not overpowered anymore. Which shows they can find solutions for game mode-specific problems and keep them separate from actual imbalances, impacting the game itself.
IPS wrote: May 10th, 2023, 5:16 pm And just to mention, Afterlife will defenetively need an altered/modified Default Era just for that rankeds/gamemode becaue with the new balance changes some matchups will be even more unfair than how they're now (but atleast, there will not be aberrations that are easy win as getting Knalgan in there).
They already have one. Nerfed Steelclad resistances, allowed Orcish Slayer to level up, etc...
Hejnewar wrote: May 10th, 2023, 11:08 pm That pretty much convinces me to go for the Guinness world record in the longes balance patchnotes. (Remember I havent even started with core units.) I originally planned to do the Arcane Resistances Rework way later, but there is no harn in doing it earlier as well.
Good to hear that, go ahead.
"A lion doesn't concern himself with the opinions of the sheep." - Tywin Lannister
User avatar
Yomar
Posts: 392
Joined: October 27th, 2011, 5:14 am
Contact:

Re: Balance changes for 1.18

Post by Yomar »

Msybe it would nice to consider the possibility to add the Infantryman (blademan) unit to the loyalist core line, it always made little sense to me that the Spearman can evolve into a Swordsman, and as for the graphics there is already an unit with all the right graphics and animations, (it's also nicely balanced in my opinion, maybe it would also limit spearman spam in some circumstances).
The unit is present in the "War of legends era" and in the "Loyalist Tweaks: Spearman unit-line tweaks" Add-ons for BFW 1.14.
Beholded Wesnoth's Origins.
Max G on WIF
Rank 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
User avatar
IPS
Posts: 1278
Joined: December 6th, 2009, 6:36 pm
Location: Venezuela

Re: Balance changes for 1.18

Post by IPS »

I got some idea for the weaky northener orcs, thing that if you think well all makes sense.

Orcs shouldn't they be better in cave than human? well, theorically in cave terrain they do the same than human, but, this is not completely true at all if consider about of one specific type of tiles... fungus... orcs appart that have no ressist bonuses, they do terribly bad in fungus terrain, requires 3 MP to move at there as well of having as much defense as in flat ... ???? orcs lacks of factional strenghts compared to loy or rebels, they feel quite a weak pick in WC II scenarios. I find this issue quite irrational in orcs being worse in fungus, unless there be a GREAT explanation, but even then it doesn't feel very balanced at all.

Other thing that I think that could orc to perform better... is allowing them to be 40% defense on SAND, could make sense if we consider that orcs are from more arid/steppe/dry zones, this would allow them to fight better at situations there is not much vegetation (as frozen or more dry terrain, SAND). They literally need this to just not be that massively worse than loy or rebels. Also I do not think orcs can become OP just because their SAND defense is changed from 30% to 40% (1/6 more evasion in a bad terrain, small bonus but might help).

I hope my contribution could help just a bit, but I personally think that northeners is a faction without grace and without the same level of charisma as other default faction as Loyalists, Rebels, Knalgan or Drakes (I do also have a very poor impression about Undead too ... but I don't have anything important to say about them appart of decreasing skeleton's arcane weakness to something like -30% or -40%)

These are more drastic and more refined changes, but I hope that this post at least helps to reconsider more empathy to these poor factions.
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
lhybrideur
Posts: 355
Joined: July 9th, 2019, 1:46 pm

Re: Balance changes for 1.18

Post by lhybrideur »

From what I remember, orcs somehow mostly live in the north of Wesnoth. Could your bonuses on sand then be changed to better movement and defense on snow instead ?
User avatar
Lord-Knightmare
Discord Moderator
Posts: 2337
Joined: May 24th, 2010, 5:26 pm
Location: Somewhere in the depths of Irdya, gathering my army to eventually destroy the known world.
Contact:

Re: Balance changes for 1.18

Post by Lord-Knightmare »

The only Northern desert I know to exist is the "Desert of Death"...in Son of the Black Eye. TBH, orcs should get maybe 10% more DEF on snow and 2 MP cost. 20% seems punishing. The MP cost seems okay. I never quite understood the mushroom impediment myself. Maybe...they are too large to naigate mushrooms and are more easily seen than other races?
Creator of "War of Legends"
Creator of the Isle of Mists survival scenario.
Maintainer of Forward They Cried
User:Knyghtmare | My Medium
gnombat
Posts: 669
Joined: June 10th, 2010, 8:49 pm

Re: Balance changes for 1.18

Post by gnombat »

It seems like most multiplayer maps don't actually have any sand, though? (And most don't have any snow, either.) So it seems like if you wanted this change to actually help the orcs in multiplayer, you would have to add sand (or snow) to all the maps...?
User avatar
IPS
Posts: 1278
Joined: December 6th, 2009, 6:36 pm
Location: Venezuela

Re: Balance changes for 1.18

Post by IPS »

Lord-Knightmare wrote: May 31st, 2023, 1:13 pm The only Northern desert I know to exist is the "Desert of Death"...in Son of the Black Eye. TBH, orcs should get maybe 10% more DEF on snow and 2 MP cost. 20% seems punishing. The MP cost seems okay. I never quite understood the mushroom impediment myself. Maybe...they are too large to naigate mushrooms and are more easily seen than other races?
But in that case goblins should be doing much better in mushrooms because of being smaller, but having same foottype than orcs lol. Who knows, viewing 60% mushroom defense gobbos thanks to this discussion could be fun to see :lol: other thing that could help orcs is being 50% cave defense (dwarves have that defense in caves, but much better ressists)

And yeah, orcs require as much movement cost in frozen than elves, but problem is the massive 20% frozen defense. Don't know, but hope 40% frozen defense and 2 MP cost at there doesn't seem too exagerated (not for trolls ofc).

But actually, I feel pretty sory for orcs, they don't have any factional strength at all, and numbers is not fun mechanism because upkeep will then hit really hard...
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
Hejnewar
Posts: 239
Joined: September 17th, 2016, 11:01 am

Re: Balance changes for 1.18

Post by Hejnewar »

First of, I dont think there is an understanding of one very crucial aspect of shrooms. On some maps, shrooms are suppesed to weaken orc rushes while helping with ud rushes.

Shrooms are sacerd for orcs (totally cannon lore trust me bro).

Look in the direction of what doesnt exist yet, instead of what already does.
Post Reply