Suggestion for Paladin.

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FleshPeeler
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Post by FleshPeeler »

Because of the length of this thread I feel I'm starting to lose track of the Paladin's intended purpose to begin with, and this makes it a bit difficult to say what should be done with him.

My impressions as of now:
-Scott refers to the Paladin of ye olden days of yore, where he was the sole upgrade to Knight and little more than . . . a better Knight.
-Many feel that the Paladin is not worth recruiting because he is solely a Ghost killer, because most other Undead units are too risky to pit him against (This doesn't seem like a worthy role for an MP unit. Why keep a L3 unit that is only useful against a handful of unit types that make up only a fraction of one faction?).
-Most people feel that the Paladin should be made more generic so it can be used in generally any situation, but it should still retain dominance over Undead.
-The majority of the people who have responded here believe that the Paladin should have some sort of ability to make him unique against the Grand Knight. Many feel that Heals is not adequate for the Paladin's role.

With these points in mind (and please, correct me if I'm wrong on any of these), it seems that the Paladin is a little too clerical if you know what I mean. So let's pull him a bit more towards his Knight-ish roots.

Give the Paladin 'Leadership' instead of 'Heals.' It only makes sense that an honorable unit such as a Paladin should have this (I've never understood why no Horseman/advancement had it to begin with). Give him a Magical sword which would be his main attack, and a mace which would be his impact side-arm (keep mace damage on a scale that's low for a L3 unit).

Yes, Leadership on a charging unit is rough, but it balances itself. He's an L3, meaning it's not an easy advantage to acquire.
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JW
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Post by JW »

I can't tell if you meant make all those cahnges at once, one or the other, whether to keep the lance, or what. I'm quite a logical person, but I didn't really get what exactly you were proposing.

If it was this (and LMK if I am wrong)...

-take current Paladin
-remove Holy sword
-add Magical Blade sword
-add Impact mace
-remove Heals
-add Leadership

...then I would DEFINITELY have to say "NO!"

That would be better off being a new, third, unit.


-edit-

Also, this concern:
(This doesn't seem like a worthy role for an MP unit. Why keep a L3 unit that is only useful against a handful of unit types that make up only a fraction of one faction?).
-doesn't really come up in MP. I never even see Knights in MP, let alone a level 3 Horseman.
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Post by khamul »

FleshPeeler wrote:-The majority of the people who have responded here believe that the Paladin should have some sort of ability to make him unique against the Grand Knight.
This, to my mind, is the key to the problem: the Paladin needs a special ability to make him different to the GK because the GK is such an uber-unit. The GK has a vast number of HP, an incredibly powerful charge, and a melee attack comparable to an Lvl 3 Orc.

It's difficult to see how to make a Knight advancement different without making it weaker than the GK, unless you make it specialist, which is what we want to avoid. The only solution I see is to make the GK less uber.

In campaigns, I use the GK to fill 2 roles: a tank, to hold the most vulnerable positions in my line, and an assault unit, to devastate melee-weak enemies. Why not have the 2 advancements each serve one of these roles.

How about:
* (Heavy Cavalry) 78HP, better resists than Knight, 6-7 MV, 9-5 blade, 14-3 Mace, no charge attack.
* (Medium Cavalry) ~70HP, Knight resists, 8MV, 10-4 blade, 17-2 charge.

I have no attachment to names. I don't care which is called a Grand Knight, which is called a Paladin, or even if neither of them are.
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zol
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Post by zol »

Maybe I haven't read closely enough, but it seems that no-one has made much of the fact that a knight upgrade with illuminate would affect the time of day of its enemies.
Being more likely to attack or be on the front line greatly increases the effect on enemies relative to the MoL who usually affects allies by staying behind them.

It may not be relevant if "Paladin" is just a cool-sounding name for better (but not grand) knight.

I still favour a good mace attack.
If it's acceptable to change an attack from blade to holy, even if both are called "sword", then I suppose it's okay to change it to impact and call it "mace".
I don't know that it really needs a sword as well.
But perhaps greater versatility could be its 'theme', thus, making it a natural default advancement and reversing the overspecialisation problem.

Leadership sounds promising either way; A way to be different but not inferior to the GK without being unusual. Although, always ending up with non-quick leaders myself, a leader that can keep up would be a novelty.
JW wrote:That would be better off being a new, third, unit.
It is not clear to me which variations constitute non-identity with the speculative unit under discussion.
Last edited by zol on August 4th, 2006, 2:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Noyga »

Turning the holy sword into a mace will not solve the RIPLIB problem at all.
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Post by Elvish_Pillager »

khamul wrote:The GK has ... a melee attack comparable to an Lvl 3 Orc.
Not anymore. The level 3 Orc was nerfed, so the GK has a higher attack than it now.

As to your idea: what might be nice is to reduce the GK's sword attack to around 10-4, and give the Paladin a nice 9-5 blade sword attack. Oh, and raise up the Paladin's HP to at least 70.

Then you'd have:

Paladin: fast, less HP, good sword, OK charging, (maybe keep heals), (maybe add a mace attack)
GK: slower, more HP, good lance, OK sword
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Post by zol »

Noyga wrote:Turning the holy sword into a mace will not solve the RIPLIB problem at all.
There are many things it won't do.

If RIPLIB compliance is the whole story, then retaining the weapon type of the knight, together with existing stat increases would appear to be sufficient.

As long as there is one advancement option that is no more than a natural extension of its predecessor, enough to compensate for XP value to the enemy, RIPLIB is satisfied.

As Scott wishes the Paladin to be the RIPLIB-keeper, the GK need not comply (or, as written, would comply) by virtue of having a compliant alternative.

Balancing, too, is outside the scope of RIPLIB from what I can tell.
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khamul
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Post by khamul »

Elvish Pillager wrote: Paladin: fast, less HP, good sword, OK charging, (maybe keep heals), (maybe add a mace attack)
GK: slower, more HP, good lance, OK sword
Personally, I'd rather have a powerful charge attack on the fast unit, and a strong sword attack on the slow tough unit.

If the enemy unit has a weak retaliation, I'm going to charge it, not use the sword.
EDIT2: Unless the enemy has low HP and good defense. Then I might use the sword - but I'm more likely to use a different unit. (/edit)

If it's too dangerous to charge, it's nearly always too dangerous to attack with a sword, because you have to ensure you've got enough HP left to cope with any archers that turn up (and they always do).

The sword exists for retaliations, and I want that on the slow tough unit, that I'm using to hold the most vulnerable bits of my line. I won't use the Paladin (as above) for that, because he's too fragile.

EDIT: in my suggest for the (Medium Cavalry) and (Heavy Cavalry), the (Medium Cavalry) meets RIPLIB and the (Heavy Cavalry) gets the mace.
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FleshPeeler
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Post by FleshPeeler »

zol wrote:
JW wrote:That would be better off being a new, third, unit.
It is not clear to me which variations constitute non-identity with the speculative unit under discussion.
Right, I was going to ask that. With the exception of Leadership, all other suggestions I made came directly from what other people were proposing in this thread. As for whether or not he keeps the Lance, personally I would say no if he has a strong sword (and I would never Charge with a low-HP specialty unit anyway, I think it's foolish for the current Paladin to have it) but others might disagree. Since I was uncertain I simply didn't address it at all in my post.

Could you explain why exactly it is a poor suggestion? Is the whole thing bad, or could a part of it work? Could Leadership be an adequate replacement for Heals (personally I still like Illuminates better because it's useless as an offensive tool for MoL, but I think that debate has passed so I'll let it rest)?

Actually, before all of that, I'd like to ask this: Do you like the role that the Paladin is currently in?

Edit:
JW wrote:Also, this concern:
(This doesn't seem like a worthy role for an MP unit. Why keep a L3 unit that is only useful against a handful of unit types that make up only a fraction of one faction?).
-doesn't really come up in MP. I never even see Knights in MP, let alone a level 3 Horseman.
What you're essentially saying is that because the Paladin is hard (read: not impossible) to attain in MP, it's perfectly fine to leave him in the game as a defective unit advancement, am I right? If so, I do not agree with this. What if Goblin Spearman had a level 3 advancement with 100 HP and a 12-6 Spear attack?

Since it CAN appear in MP, it MUST be taken into account. Should we allow a player who manages to reach level 3 access a beyond-Godly unit that was neglected when the balancing decisions were made, and then trample the entire board with it? Of course not, and I think the same is true for the opposite end of the spectrum - a relatively useless L3 unit - which I believe the Paladin currently is for MP.

If we aren't going to pay any attention to the issues surrounding a Paladin's ineffectiveness in MP, why should he even be there? I think that everybody wants to keep Paladin in because it is an alternate choice, but the problem is that it isn't a choice that compares with the current Grand Knight. This, to my understanding, is because the Paladin's role is so directly focused upon an outstanding ~4 units in the game. As others pointed out, it's rarely worth attacking most Undead with the Paladin anyway because of retaliation, so Ghosts, Bats, WC, and Dark Adept line are really the only feasible uses of this L3 unit - talk about your wasted resources. The only options then are removing Paladin from MP or changing his role - yes, even if he needs to become a drastically different unit.
What if nobody ever asked "What if?"

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Post by JW »

FleshPeeler wrote:
JW wrote:Also, this concern: -doesn't really come up in MP. I never even see Knights in MP, let alone a level 3 Horseman.
What you're essentially saying is that because the Paladin is hard (read: not impossible) to attain in MP, it's perfectly fine to leave him in the game as a defective unit advancement, am I right? If so, I do not agree with this. What if Goblin Spearman had a level 3 advancement with 100 HP and a 12-6 Spear attack?

Since it CAN appear in MP, it MUST be taken into account. Should we allow a player who manages to reach level 3 access a beyond-Godly unit that was neglected when the balancing decisions were made, and then trample the entire board with it? Of course not, and I think the same is true for the opposite end of the spectrum - a relatively useless L3 unit - which I believe the Paladin currently is for MP.
No, no, no...broken units need to be fixed; delapadated units that you have a choice to avoid need not necessarily be changed if they fill a niche purpose. Obviously we want all the units to be balanced and USED, so that's where the discussion lies now.
If we aren't going to pay any attention to the issues surrounding a Paladin's ineffectiveness in MP, why should he even be there? I think that everybody wants to keep Paladin in because it is an alternate choice, but the problem is that it isn't a choice that compares with the current Grand Knight. This, to my understanding, is because the Paladin's role is so directly focused upon an outstanding ~4 units in the game. As others pointed out, it's rarely worth attacking most Undead with the Paladin anyway because of retaliation, so Ghosts, Bats, WC, and Dark Adept line are really the only feasible uses of this L3 unit - talk about your wasted resources. The only options then are removing Paladin from MP or changing his role - yes, even if he needs to become a drastically different unit.
This is so wrong.

The problem I see with the Paladin is that yes, he is an able fighter (due to his Charge attack), but against 5/6 factions the GK is the obvious choice as he is a far more able fighter in any situations (that can arise v those 5/6 factions). The 1/6 the Paladin totally destroys Undead without mercy, and no, fear of retaliation is an extremely silly argument. Any unit attacking it with melee is toast. 2 units can attack it with ranged: the DA and the SA lines. The DA can be taken out with Charge and the SA with Holy sword. He simply tears through these units and it is now the Undead who must pray to the Paladin's gods to spare them.

Seriously, I don't think you understand how much Holy damage completely and utterly destroys Undead...
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Post by FleshPeeler »

JW wrote: Seriously, I don't think you understand how much Holy damage completely and utterly destroys Undead...
I thought someone earlier in the thread noted that some units can easily retaliate and kill the Paladin, but looking back I realize I had misread their post. They were talking about campaign, not MP. I respectfully withdraw that argument.

Ok, so we have a unit that is functional against ONLY ONE faction. I've asked this before and did not get a response; Why do Loyalists get a unit that single-handedly trumps all units of a given faction, but no other faction has such a unit? (Correction: I guess Rebels can get WM/MoL too, but I've always questioned the Holy damage type anyway . . . won't bring that up here though, I want to stay on topic).

You may have thought it was silly that I invented a level 3 12-6 Spearman in my last post, but it was made to make this argument; to an Undead player, the Paladin is that broken unit that could kill the entire field by itself if a player was really careful with him. What is Undead's counter to a Paladin? Ranged SA and DA that die as soon as he gets a turn to fight back. How many units does Undead have to sacrifice before that Paladin is dead - or worse, because of its high movement, retreats so it can heal and come back in a few turns?
What if nobody ever asked "What if?"

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Post by Lathai »

I would totally agree with how the paladin destroys undead. I was just playing the Valley of the Dead (or whatever it's called) from HttT and when I left my paladin out in the open near the southern keep, the AI threw multiple skeleton's at it during the night, all of which died. This was unfortunate for me because they also killed the paladin (or a SA afterwards) but the point is, they were destroyed (almost like the massive hordes of WC phenomenom).

One idea I had while reading this thread (this is not an idea I specifically endorse, just one I'm throwing out there) is to make the paladin's charge attack less but give him 3 attacks rather than just 2. This might make him more similar to the lancer. Or you could even make him advance from the lancer (although that's a little drastic). I don't have an opinion one way or another about these ideas so feel free to tear them apart. :D

Edit: didn't see that last post.
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Post by Cuyo Quiz »

Just to clarify some stuff... and to avoid the long convolution this seems to be, i'll ignore stuff.

When i said i wanted a grittier, mace-wielding, illuminating Paladin i didn't think he should have charge. In fact, so much time without seeing one that i had forgotten they had charge. No heals either. Any chance for this to be a difference between them? (after all, there are people fond of charging in the right place at the right time, i'm sure).

IIRC, impact is a pretty reliable damage type, not many units having significant res for it in comparison with blade/pierce, so the mace could take care of making the Paladin a little more effective vs. common units. Damage and reps are left to manipulation.

Then, the combo with Illuminates should still do it a good contender to everything chaotic (including Undead). This gives some staying power, and without charge he is no longer so proclive to death.

About modifying his resistances, it may be done as fine tuning. Let's not try to modify everything at once and after that try to find what we should change again to work things out.

RIPLIB... yeah, that's really something. I remember people wanting the GK to have the same mov as the Horseman, thus solutioning the issue (was it EP?), but i also don't rememebr why it didn't go through (enlightment on this, anyone?). The fact that the Paladin was the first upgrade chronologically shouldn't stop us from a free decision on who should be the "RIPLIB choice".

I'm sorry if this sounds a little confusing (EDIT: And oh god so long, let's make it smaller), but my brain is kind of dead right now (good to ignore things, bad for eloquency), paint odor is fun only while it lasts, just like booze.
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Post by JW »

FleshPeeler wrote:Ok, so we have a unit that is functional against ONLY ONE faction. I've asked this before and did not get a response; Why do Loyalists get a unit that single-handedly trumps all units of a given faction, but no other faction has such a unit? (Correction: I guess Rebels can get WM/MoL too, but I've always questioned the Holy damage type anyway . . . won't bring that up here though, I want to stay on topic).
Now, that I think is the root of the problem. If you have one damage type that utterly owns every unit in 1 faction (x2 damage on most), but does little damage against every other (x0.8 damage or less), then of course you're going to have a unit that is specialized heavily against that one faction and much less useful in other situations. That's simply the nature of the damage type the unit uses.

Now, I like Cuyo's idea before and I like it now. The loss of the lance is a big deal, so the unit would have to be empowered in a different way - but this is fine since the lance is nearly useless against the units' primary targets anyway. I wonder about Illuminates on such a fast unit, but I think it could be worked out.
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Post by whitewater »

I don't think massive changes are needed to make the choice strategically interesting, but I already place a lot of value on the healing powers the paladin has. I think it depends on the settings of the game and your play style, because i currently will choose paladins for their healing sometimes. One change that could make the choice a little more interesting would be to remove the pierce weakness on the paladin and leave other stats close to what they currently are. I personally feel this isnt neccesary, but it could be considered. I have no problem with things currently and won't complain if the paladin justs gets a couple more hp.
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