Nightmares of Meloen faction

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
FAAB
Inactive Developer
Posts: 52
Joined: November 15th, 2008, 12:15 pm

Re: Nightmares of Meloen faction

Post by FAAB »

krotop wrote:Update Bump.

0.21.0 release on Fri May 8th, 2009 :
[...]
* hp decreased from 24 to 21 for the howling darkness
* hp decreased from 32 to 30 for the cloud of gloom
* hp decreased from 45 to 42 for the eternal night
* horror ability now reduces the opponent damages by 25% + 15%/level instead of 15% + 15%/level
I like the trend of that change especially how the HP reduction makes up for the power increase. Now the darkness is really getting a central role in the faction strategy that matches the character of the unit. It is very mobile and gives powerful support while the relative lack of HP requires careful use.

The first comment I have about this change is concerning the cloud of gloom (level 2 unit). If you compare to the level 1, it gets a significant increase of HP (+50% while it got only +33% before the change). This change alone makes the use of the unit much easier hence makes the unit more powerful. On the same time, it also gets a huge boost of the horror effect (+15%). On top of that, it gets a small melee attack that prevent weak units to get free hit on melee. All it all, I think that advancement is a bit too powerful for an advancement that requires 3 kills only. While I can understand the point of HP buff and adding melee, I think that giving all at the same time just break the balance of the unit and will be abused.

That would lead to my second comment: I think introducing a second branch in the unit tree might be good. The first branch, being the natural extension of the level 1 with low HP (27?), no melee and the implemented boost for horror ability. The second branch would have more significant HP increase (35?), a melee attack and a limited horror ability (or even none). I would think the first branch being used in most matchup to the exception of drake where the second one would be more useful as a fighting unit. In that case, I expect the current range attack (12-2) being given to the second branch while the first one getting a reduced one (like 7-3?). The second branch would have also some use in survival scenarios (more HP).

For the time being, the description of the horror ability should be updated to match the changes and should be extended to inform that +1 level enemies are still affected by horror by a factor -10% (what I get from reading the WML).
Let me know what you think.
User avatar
krotop
2009 Map Contest Winner
Posts: 433
Joined: June 8th, 2006, 3:05 pm
Location: Bordeaux, France

Re: Nightmares of Meloen faction

Post by krotop »

FAAB wrote:The first comment I have about this change is concerning the cloud of gloom (level 2 unit). If you compare to the level 1, it gets a significant increase of HP (+50% while it got only +33% before the change). This change alone makes the use of the unit much easier hence makes the unit more powerful. On the same time, it also gets a huge boost of the horror effect (+15%). On top of that, it gets a small melee attack that prevent weak units to get free hit on melee. All it all, I think that advancement is a bit too powerful for an advancement that requires 3 kills only. While I can understand the point of HP buff and adding melee, I think that giving all at the same time just break the balance of the unit and will be abused.
That's right, I increased the hp boost. That was because after rereading the old hp boost I found it kind of weak, so to compensate I made a smaller decrease for the lvl2.
For the melee retaliation, it is supposed to be a symbolic one, if 4-2 is actually too high, it could be made 4-1. But for the recall we're talking of a level 2 unit, 4-1 is *really* poor, actually I don't have in mind any unit having a worst melee attack, and 4-2 is already a mage-like melee (that is to say, a very bad melee). For the background of the unit it is probably better to have that cold aura than having no attack at all in my humble opinion.
I'm not sure what weak units you have in mind, I can't think of a unit that would attack the gloom without the melee (with an intention to actually hurt, free shots for xp is lame IMO) and would be reluctant if there is retaliation. Ok, except for the ulfserker, but is it really wanted to have an ulf able to take away a lvl2 without the shadow of a risk ?

I agree that the unit is having a good leveling for 3 kills only, and against drakes it is not hard to kill with this unit (although hard to make it survive). So increasing the xp to have the unit need 4 kills sounds more reasonable, this will be done for 0.22 when there are a few more stats needed to be altered.
FAAB wrote:That would lead to my second comment: I think introducing a second branch in the unit tree might be good. The first branch, being the natural extension of the level 1 with low HP (27?), no melee and the implemented boost for horror ability. The second branch would have more significant HP increase (35?), a melee attack and a limited horror ability (or even none). I would think the first branch being used in most matchup to the exception of drake where the second one would be more useful as a fighting unit. In that case, I expect the current range attack (12-2) being given to the second branch while the first one getting a reduced one (like 7-3?). The second branch would have also some use in survival scenarios (more HP).
I am not against putting a few split branches if they really add something. However I find the one you propose rather redundant with the soul snatcher (lvl2 life thief), I'm afraid. And as a side note, giving 35-40hp without the aura makes the unit's survivability quite bad. At favorable ToD, the spearman still does 7-3 and the grunt 9-2, this is quite harmful against a unit that can't have better than 40% defense. Having a 'halfway horror' isn't a viable option either, it is complicating the branches for little gameplay value addition (it is still a bit redundant with the other branch).
FAAB wrote:For the time being, the description of the horror ability should be updated to match the changes and should be extended to inform that +1 level enemies are still affected by horror by a factor -10% (what I get from reading the WML).
Thanks for the correction, done for 0.21.3 and released on the add-on server.
Don't trust me, I'm just average player.
***
Game feedback for the Nightmares of Meloen
Art feedback by mystic x the unknown
User avatar
FAAB
Inactive Developer
Posts: 52
Joined: November 15th, 2008, 12:15 pm

Re: Nightmares of Meloen faction

Post by FAAB »

krotop wrote:
FAAB wrote:On top of that, it gets a small melee attack that prevent weak units to get free hit on melee.
I'm not sure what weak units you have in mind, I can't think of a unit that would attack the gloom without the melee (with an intention to actually hurt, free shots for xp is lame IMO) and would be reluctant if there is retaliation. Ok, except for the ulfserker, but is it really wanted to have an ulf able to take away a lvl2 without the shadow of a risk ?
I meant weakened unit, their HP being low from having got damage. By free hit, I meant that they can be used without fear of retaliation.
User avatar
krotop
2009 Map Contest Winner
Posts: 433
Joined: June 8th, 2006, 3:05 pm
Location: Bordeaux, France

Re: Nightmares of Meloen faction

Post by krotop »

Ah thanks, I didn't understand it that way. Well, I don't see the lvl2 gloom being safer from near-to-death units as being very detrimental. And the ulf matter is still worrying, I could lower a bit the power but the current numbers seem at least fair for the ulf, the ctk, depending on traits are the following:
Day:
80% ctk for 2 combinations of traits over 10 (quick/strong and quick/intel)
90% ctk for 3 combinations over 10
95% ctk for 3/10
98% for 2/10 (resilient/strong and resilient/healthy)
Dawn/Dusk and Night:
29% for the quick/intel traits
47% for 4/10
65% for 4/10
80% for the resilient/healthy traits
All considered for full health units, and independently from the terrain.
I'm not sure it is good to give more advantage to the ulf, but please let me know your position on this.

Edit:
Update to 0.22, fixes on higher leveling and incrementation of xp requirements for the lvl1 darkness.
Don't trust me, I'm just average player.
***
Game feedback for the Nightmares of Meloen
Art feedback by mystic x the unknown
fog_of_gold
Posts: 637
Joined: December 20th, 2009, 5:59 pm
Location: Germany

Re: Nightmares of Meloen faction

Post by fog_of_gold »

@creeper:
I think, that they have to have less damage (set to 3) but more defense(75%, 80% in swamp): At the moment, there is a lot of random. There are much creatures, which can kill these creepers by one or some hits. So often you can't use there strong ability, which can cause until 6*5=30 damage(which happens very often). There prize to update bands have to be 2 gold/band, becasue you can use them for a cheap scouting(yes, they haven't got a big range, but they are very cheap and have the same costs)

The defendanimation don't change, if they advance.


@Unstable elements:
They are fine but I'd like to have more diffrents. Their total damage are only 2 more or less about 14 in melee and 8 in range. Some suggestions of me to this more interesting (Only in the Unstable form):

bramble form
-they get a mix of ambush and nightstalk (So they'll be invisible, if they are in a forest at night)
-regeneration +2
-lose there range attack

quake form
-shatter have to be 10-2
-resistances have to be 30%, 15%
-movementcosts should be one more for everyone but not over 4.
-should have ABILITY_STEADFAST
-no boulder or only 3-1
User avatar
krotop
2009 Map Contest Winner
Posts: 433
Joined: June 8th, 2006, 3:05 pm
Location: Bordeaux, France

Re: Nightmares of Meloen faction

Post by krotop »

fog_of_gold wrote:@creeper:
I think, that they have to have less damage (set to 3) but more defense(75%, 80% in swamp): At the moment, there is a lot of random. There are much creatures, which can kill these creepers by one or some hits. So often you can't use there strong ability, which can cause until 6*5=30 damage(which happens very often). There prize to update bands have to be 2 gold/band, becasue you can use them for a cheap scouting(yes, they haven't got a big range, but they are very cheap and have the same costs)

The defendanimation don't change, if they advance.
Sorry, but I decided to refute any option that'll nerf the creeper unless I get some evidence of them being overpowered, so no damage decrease, and no band_upkeep increase. Your point about their low resilience sounds fair to me, I may increase their health to 14hp.
And good catch about the defend animation, I need to fix that.

fog_of_gold wrote:@Unstable elements:
They are fine but I'd like to have more diffrents. Their total damage are only 2 more or less about 14 in melee and 8 in range. Some suggestions of me to this more interesting (Only in the Unstable form):

bramble form
-they get a mix of ambush and nightstalk (So they'll be invisible, if they are in a forest at night)
-regeneration +2
-lose there range attack

quake form
-shatter have to be 10-2
-resistances have to be 30%, 15%
-movementcosts should be one more for everyone but not over 4.
-should have ABILITY_STEADFAST
-no boulder or only 3-1
All significant terrains have been covered, so there's no other forms planned. Anyway, that's more a decision for mysticX to take, because art is the field that actually requires work for your proposition. If my opinion is required, I'd say it can't down the unit, but it's not worth the effort.

For the existing forms, I must say I'm rather happy with them at the moment, and I'm against all of the above, except the steadfast and no boulder which sound like a decent alternative if there's a need for change.
Don't trust me, I'm just average player.
***
Game feedback for the Nightmares of Meloen
Art feedback by mystic x the unknown
fog_of_gold
Posts: 637
Joined: December 20th, 2009, 5:59 pm
Location: Germany

Re: Nightmares of Meloen faction

Post by fog_of_gold »

Your point about their low resilience sounds fair to me, I may increase their health to 14hp.
Yes. That should change a lot.
, except the steadfast and no boulder which sound like a decent alternative if there's a need for change.
That is the most importent point to get they more golem-like.
User avatar
krotop
2009 Map Contest Winner
Posts: 433
Joined: June 8th, 2006, 3:05 pm
Location: Bordeaux, France

Re: Nightmares of Meloen faction

Post by krotop »

The problem with steadfast is that it would make the quake form too good, so I prefer to be sure the faction needs that defense boost, with more practical testing on MP, before actually doing this change.
Don't trust me, I'm just average player.
***
Game feedback for the Nightmares of Meloen
Art feedback by mystic x the unknown
fog_of_gold
Posts: 637
Joined: December 20th, 2009, 5:59 pm
Location: Germany

Re: Nightmares of Meloen faction

Post by fog_of_gold »

To get the power of the unit, we should multiply hitpoints with this:
-the strongest melee attack and, let us say, we have an average diffrent of 10% by resistences so the other melee attacks will be add by 10% of their damage. At last, we does the same thing with the ranged attack and add this, because no range means mostly no counterstrike
-the average of the deffence (but here only home terrains)
-the average of the resistences

So before the changing, we had a power of (15+6)*45%*8,3..%*38=29,925

After a changing, we'll have a power of 15*45%*(8,3..%+8,3..%/2)*38=32,0625

Not really a big diffrent.(+2,1375 power, so ~+7% more power)

But they won't be able for a decent attack or to catch villages(Because they'll mostly form into another form), so the (human) enemies will ignore them. (But ai will love to fight against them, because they won't get much damage)
User avatar
FAAB
Inactive Developer
Posts: 52
Joined: November 15th, 2008, 12:15 pm

Nightmares of Meloen faction on 1.7.x version

Post by FAAB »

Just dropping by to say that I have put the add-on on the 1.7 serie add-on server.
It is identical to 0.22.0 (but the regression bugs) except in the way it displays the banding upkeep (floating label). Hence I labeled it 0.22.1.

Check it out if you find any problem with this version.
I am sending the .pbl to krotop so that he can take over the support :evil:
User avatar
krotop
2009 Map Contest Winner
Posts: 433
Joined: June 8th, 2006, 3:05 pm
Location: Bordeaux, France

Re: Nightmares of Meloen faction

Post by krotop »

I'm slowly coming back to it, a release is expectable for sunday. Sorry for the long period of hibernation.

Edit : there it is, though I didn't do as much polish as I hoped to. Still missing a lot of sounds, descriptions and missile anims.
Don't trust me, I'm just average player.
***
Game feedback for the Nightmares of Meloen
Art feedback by mystic x the unknown
User avatar
FAAB
Inactive Developer
Posts: 52
Joined: November 15th, 2008, 12:15 pm

New version 0.24.0 available on 1.7 server

Post by FAAB »

Within the last month, the development of the Nightmares of Meloen has moved to Wesnoth UMC dev. This has been very helpful and the collaboration inside the team has greatly improved. The support of the UMC dev team is great, and their knowledge of WML helped us well beyond the version management. A big thanks to them.

This is why, a month after the last one, we are able to publish a quite strong new release 0.24.0 on the 1.7 server. There is quite a lot of new features:
  • - fix animations and sound for all units
  • - updated sprites for some unstable elemental variations
  • - fix buggy behaviour in the Black Cat's jinx special
  • - add an Age of heroes era
  • - add mechanism to include Nightmares of Meloen faction in third party era (see INCLUDE file)
  • - add an in-game how-to-play-nightmares documentation (access through right-click menu)
  • - better access to help for unstable elemental line
The how-to-play documentation is also available on the wiki. Feel free to look at it and report any problem in grammar, wording or spelling (either by editing the wiki or through the forum). Be kind enough not to report problems in the in-game documentation as it might be outdated and the mistake might already be fixed.

There have been some balancing changes too:
Life Thief line:
- increase fire resistance to 0%
- reduce arcane resistance to -10%
- decrease HP by 2 + 1 per level
[after change its melee to arcane, reduce its power against undead while keeping the balance vs drakes]
Howling Darkness line:
- increase fire resistance to 0%
- reduce arcane resistance to -10%
- decrease HP by 1 per level
[same changes in resist as the Life Thief as they share the same movetype and compensate on health point]
Creepers:
- change alignment to neutral
[help creepers to attack walking corpse when night is over as they die in 2 hits at night]

So check it out.

PS: the version for wesnoth 1.6 will be uploaded as soon as krotop has made it ready.
User avatar
krotop
2009 Map Contest Winner
Posts: 433
Joined: June 8th, 2006, 3:05 pm
Location: Bordeaux, France

Re: Nightmares of Meloen faction

Post by krotop »

1.6 version added, I must say, this wasn't as trivial as I expected. The colours, italic, underlined and other typographic stuffs of the How to Play got dropped in the port, unfortunately.
Don't trust me, I'm just average player.
***
Game feedback for the Nightmares of Meloen
Art feedback by mystic x the unknown
fog_of_gold
Posts: 637
Joined: December 20th, 2009, 5:59 pm
Location: Germany

Re: Nightmares of Meloen faction

Post by fog_of_gold »

The jinx ability needs much time to be cast. (about 2 seconds) I didn't test, if that helps, but what's about giving an ability increasing the chance to hit for the enemies?
User avatar
krotop
2009 Map Contest Winner
Posts: 433
Joined: June 8th, 2006, 3:05 pm
Location: Bordeaux, France

Re: Nightmares of Meloen faction

Post by krotop »

I'm against that for technical reasons : I'm not sure how it would interfere with specials using the [chance-to-hit] tag already.
Don't trust me, I'm just average player.
***
Game feedback for the Nightmares of Meloen
Art feedback by mystic x the unknown
Post Reply