Nightmares of Meloen faction

[Skizzaltix]

Simple is good--And if you find during the testing that those numbers just don't work, you can always change them.

[krotop]

The incentives were not more than it was already mentioned :
1) blade is a more common damage type than impact, hence why getting a resist bonus on it is more beneficial than the same bonus on impact. The different values of hps bonuses are here to compensate for the benefit of having this or that resist bonus.
2) the impact's resistance of the egg is lower than pierce or blade. Thus, altering it influences less the damage multiplier when the egg gets hit. That's the same reason as why drakes are less influenced by the curse special (*) than elves, and if someone is really eager to know why and doesn't find this fact intuitive, I could write down some math to show it. To make the flexible trait as valuable as others I should make it alterate the resistance more.

That being said, it may not be needed to try to reach such a level of precision, to the detriment of simplicity, that soon. So ok, let's just make the trait simple and consistent, and add small nuances only if people are generally too happy getting one trait instead of another. I'll make the impact resistance 10% base value and have the trait like F8 suggested.

Still scheduled for the end of the week, I'm open for arguments.

Edit (*) For the recall, a unit hit by a "cursing" attack gets a flat -15% bonus to its defense on every terrain, until it gets cured by a healer or in a village. Units with a generally low defense, like drakes, are not as penalized by this special as units with generally high defense, like thieves or footpads.

[FAAB]

That is a matter of perspective, I could also lower all resistance and then make only +X% resist only with trait :
impact resist starts with 0%
pierce starts with 30%
blade starts with 30%

Good catch, I was also pondering reducing the resistance on pierce and blade by 10% to take into account the introduction of the new trait

slippery -> +20% vs pierce +2 hps +1hp/level
flexible -> +30% vs impact +3 hps +2hps/level
thick -> +20% vs blade +1 hps +1hp/level
hard -> +20% vs blade +20% vs pierce, -20% vs impact

It indeed makes the traits much more readable.

So ok, let's just make the trait simple and consistent, and add small nuances only if people are generally too happy getting one trait instead of another. I'll make the impact resistance 10% base value and have the trait like F8 suggested.

I can't see any good reason why keeping all the HP boosts to 2HP. It makes all units the same, which is exactly what traits are not for. If the boost is for balance reason, better put it in the definition of the basic unit.

[krotop]

New release with the traits suggested, I opted for 32 base hitpoints and made the health bonus almost identical to the ones of standard traits :
slippery : 20% pierce + 1hp
flexible : 20% impact + 2hp + 1hp/level
thick : 20% blade
hard : 20% blade/pierce -20% impact -5% hp
Edit : Also the traits change back to standard when the egg hatches (read : levels up) to the child of foolishness or child of rage. The funny thing is that "thick" becomes "intelligent".

Also, I decreased the scythe attack of the death line by 1 damage/level, because I felt the unit to be overweaponed. To be honest I'd even prefer to just get rid of that scythe attack, I'm not so keen on dual weaponry. The only thing that prevent me from giving a single melee arcane drain attack to the spectre, at the moment, is that I fear it'll probably cause problems for the undead/nightmares and nightmares mirror match-up.

Changed slightly the unstable elemental movetypes, the jungle form is closer to the wose resistance, some others have been simplified.

Made some clumpsy WML trick to have each form of the unstable elemental available in the description menu.

[FAAB]

After the tests we had this week, my feeling on the Meloen's vs Loyalists is still that this matchup is a bit scary for the former. I have made some attempts with a dark egg's cost reduced by 2 and it improves that a lot. Who would have thought the contrary ? Now, I realize that dark egg at 12 gold is probably too low, but I think you can try to lower it at 13 gold to try.

On the other hand, you could give them a tiny boost of defense on hill (up to 50%). It would help to hold a bit (especially if you have the egg with the wrong trait). My reasoning is also that faction currently makes little use of the terrain defense on most common terrain (the elemental excepted, obviously). 3 units are flyers, the dog (oops cat, sorry ) has heavy defense on all most common terrain (getting 60% on flat, and 70% on good def terrain), the egg getting low defense (40% everywhere except 50% on castle and mountain). Considering that the eye is pretty weak and have to be covered, that leaves pretty much no place for unit placement optimization on retreat at day. The def boost for the egg would improve that slightly.
Let me know what you think.

On the creeps, beside your confirmation that they might need to be unplagable, you threw the idea of giving him a low regeneration (~2HP per turn). I think that this might be a little too good. I think part of the fun with them is to leave them on spot to rest, betting that your opponent would not spend his hitters on his best time of the day hunting insects. Getting regeneration on all creepers would remove that. It might also be a bit too good, especially against WC that needs 2 hits to get one, small regerenation might add the needs of another two hits on a wounded one (at some ToD). Though, if you think it is too hard to make it work, I suggest you go for a low regeneration after leveling, while putting the XP requirement very low (one kill for leveling at 70% XP ?) with no additional improvements.
I would rather go for some healer after leveling as it also add some brain from the user to use well, hence making it more interesting (BTW the healing should only add HP to creepers). I am no fan of the damage boost on leveling as it is now, it does not work well with the banding option. As a side note, it is pretty clear to me that lvl0 creepers should level to lvl0 advancements.

Cheers！

[krotop]

After the tests we had this week, my feeling on the Meloen's vs Loyalists is still that this matchup is a bit scary for the former. I have made some attempts with a dark egg's cost reduced by 2 and it improves that a lot. Who would have thought the contrary ? Now, I realize that dark egg at 12 gold is probably too low, but I think you can try to lower it at 13 gold to try.

I am a bit reluctant at boosting so well the egg. There is already a small gap betwen the price of this unit and others (I take the creeper case appart, since there recruit mode is kinda special), increasing that gap might be too attractive and lead to egg spam. While egg is a core unit and having a couple of them always a decent choice, I would prefer to let the other units have their role too, trying to keep in view what is the best for gameplay (subjective thought I admit). As such, if the loy/meloen match-up has problem I would prefer to try to solve it by tweaking other units before thinking of boosting the egg. If that's not doable then yes, we'll consider boosting the egg.
I also fear about the influence on other match-ups.
We discussed a tiny bit of it on the server, maybe decreasing the price of the floating darkness would help on that match-up as well as giving this expensive unit a role at last.

On the other hand, you could give them a tiny boost of defense on hill (up to 50%). It would help to hold a bit (especially if you have the egg with the wrong trait). My reasoning is also that faction currently makes little use of the terrain defense on most common terrain (the elemental excepted, obviously). 3 units are flyers, the dog (oops cat, sorry ) has heavy defense on all most common terrain (getting 60% on flat, and 70% on good def terrain), the egg getting low defense (40% everywhere except 50% on castle and mountain). Considering that the eye is pretty weak and have to be covered, that leaves pretty much no place for unit placement optimization on retreat at day. The def boost for the egg would improve that slightly.
Let me know what you think.

Alright, this sounds like a decent upgrade, not overpowered yet useful. This does not encroach on other units role if you're wondering why I accept so easily this one boosting after what I told above

On the creeps, beside your confirmation that they might need to be unplagable, you threw the idea of giving him a low regeneration (~2HP per turn). I think that this might be a little too good. I think part of the fun with them is to leave them on spot to rest, betting that your opponent would not spend his hitters on his best time of the day hunting insects. Getting regeneration on all creepers would remove that. It might also be a bit too good, especially against WC that needs 2 hits to get one, small regerenation might add the needs of another two hits on a wounded one (at some ToD). Though, if you think it is too hard to make it work, I suggest you go for a low regeneration after leveling, while putting the XP requirement very low (one kill for leveling at 70% XP ?) with no additional improvements.
I would rather go for some healer after leveling as it also add some brain from the user to use well, hence making it more interesting (BTW the healing should only add HP to creepers). I am no fan of the damage boost on leveling as it is now, it does not work well with the banding option. As a side note, it is pretty clear to me that lvl0 creepers should level to lvl0 advancements.

I recall that you mentioned a healing upgrade. Or there could be a recruitable insect, more expensive (possibly lvl1) with healing ability ? Just brainstorming. Not sure what you mean with the last sentence, or what I understand is very unintuitive.

the dog (oops cat, sorry )

Who knows ? A good soul might solve that

[FAAB]

Thanks for your answer

I think you can try to lower it at 13 gold to try.

I am a bit reluctant at boosting so well the egg. There is already a small gap betwen the price of this unit and others (I take the creeper case appart, since there recruit mode is kinda special), increasing that gap might be too attractive and lead to egg spam. While egg is a core unit and having a couple of them always a decent choice, I would prefer to let the other units have their role too, trying to keep in view what is the best for gameplay (subjective thought I admit). As such, if the loy/meloen match-up has problem I would prefer to try to solve it by tweaking other units before thinking of boosting the egg. If that's not doable then yes, we'll consider boosting the egg.
I also fear about the influence on other match-ups.

First about thinking at other changes before changing the gold. I did try to come up with some other changes first but it was not satisfactory. It is obviously your call though
Second, the egg spam/influence on other matchup. I think we should think how efficient is the egg spam at this moment. It does not seem a good strategy to take for some matchup (northerners, drake, loyalist, UD). You highlight that it might be one against the rebels, I didn't realize that and that is worth checking out. On the other hand, when there is an egg spam potential problem, we should also look at how is the problem more acute by reducing the price by 1 (worsening an egg spam problem).
Finally, thinking that as the egg is cheaper, people will get more of them (creating an egg spam problem), that is not how I see things. Currently eggs are needed in numbers (covering expensive units, holding villages, speed, ...). At current price, when you get a fair number of them, you have barely enough money left to buy other types, hence you sometimes need to take another egg due to lack of resources. What I observed with eggs at 12 (and I make the assumption that is still valid at 13) is that the price reduction allow you to keep enough cash to get more expensive units and keep a good balance between eggs and eyes or cats (for example).

it is pretty clear to me that lvl0 creepers should level to lvl0 advancements.

I recall that you mentioned a healing upgrade. Or there could be a recruitable insect, more expensive (possibly lvl1) with healing ability ? Just brainstorming. Not sure what you mean with the last sentence, or what I understand is very unintuitive.

I am pretty sure you understand it well if you find it unintuitive .
I mean recruitable level 0 creepers leveling into advancements that are level 0 too. I think it make some sense. Leveling means getting a better unit after advancement but its doesn't require the advancement is of a higher level than the original unit. If I may say so, the level of an unit somehow shows the degree of awesomeness of the unit. However strong is an insect, it can't compete with a human/horse/cat in power. Seems hard to understand that creepers get ZOC and accept your horseman can't move around because of an insect. Of course it works if the advancement is not incredibly strong which itself supposes the required XP to level is not too high.
However, I will not go further in the advancement tree of the creepers as time is better spent on the recruitable units now. I just wanted to mention for the record some idea I got when thinking at your proposal.

We discussed a tiny bit of it on the server, maybe decreasing the price of the floating darkness would help on that match-up as well as giving this expensive unit a role at last.

I welcome a discussion on this unit as myself haven't found how to make good use of it yet. My feeling is that the floating darkness is an expensive unit (20 gold), quite weak (24HP) with poor defense (40% top) and pretty basic resistance (around 20%) except weakness on fire (-20%). To make up for the price, it got 7 flying MP and 2 abilities: skirmisher and terror.
Terror allow to reduce the damage of opponent units next to it. Due to its lack of HP, the terror ability is pretty difficult to use on defense as it would requires you to put the floating darkness in the front line, which would make it a primary target for your opponent to hit (due to its price). On the other hand, this ability is best used at your opponent's best time of day as the reduction counts for ~1/7th of your opponent damage. From those facts, I concluded that the best situation to use the floating darkness is against the northerners and UD at night on offense. Did anyone come up with other circumstances where the unit's 20 gold is well spent ?
On the other hand, if we have real troubles finding a way to use the floating darkness as it is now, why not taking the problem from the other side, reduce it movement to 5 and price to something like 16 at see how powerful it gets, being ready to change the numbers.
Another alternative that would be easier to use is to give adjacent allied a resistance boost rather than reducing opponent's damage (just throwing ideas here). It would be quite similar gameplay wise, though it would not fit the terror factor well anymore.

[krotop]

All good points for the eggs and creepers. I hope the scenario you foresee after price reduction is correct, let's try a bit with 13g and see if it's a satisfying solution. For creepers, the idea not to change level is cool, but I would prefer to go for an evolved After Max Level Advancement giving more than just +3hps : all upgrading units have a higher level so far and that is a rule I'm not up to transgress. As you pointed, we'll focus on recruitable units for now, though, so making a new AMLA for creepers is not priority. Thanks for all the nice suggestions

For the floating darkness, I will correct a few things you mentioned.
The price is even worse than what you told, it's 21g.
Also I'm changing the cold weakness for the next release to 50% because adepts already have arcane to kill it, and I don't want to make the spectre and darkness decently killable by the saurian augur too : drakes already have plenty of fire to do that. But that remark is more for information, it is not very relevant to the discussion here. So that makes these 2 units resistant to impact and cold, quite killable by pierce and blade, and weak to arcane and fire for the recap, with an average of 20% resist as you said.
Finally, the leadership aura (reversed here for terror) adds with the Time of Day bonus and doesn't multiply it. As such, terror is equally important at all time of day for float numbers. The rounding error can make the terror more or less important, though, but that is 1 point of difference for the worst. The floating darkness is definitely not a tank, that's a possible way to use the terror ability, but not one I designed the unit for so I would prefer not to make it more slow/tough. Iit was designed to support the eggs in their charge, reducing the risk of hard retaliation. Velensk some months ago mentionned some side effects which scared me, like the possiblity to village steal, but so far I haven't seen that a single time, so I will probably reduce the price drastically to 19 or 18 gold until someone (maybe me?) shout loudly with a replay that it makes the unit overpowered.

Edit : also edited the original post. Because mysticX rocks.

Edit2 : I haven't answered to that, sorry.

Another alternative that would be easier to use is to give adjacent allied a resistance boost rather than reducing opponent's damage (just throwing ideas here). It would be quite similar gameplay wise, though it would not fit the terror factor well anymore.

Protection would indeed be more powerful, because terror needs the unit to take 1 free hex next to the target, it also requires less movements from the "protector". Otherwise, yes, the result would be similar, you get a "virtual healing" accounting on the hps the units are not losing in battle thanks to the aura. In my humble opinion, when gameplay is similar, what can be convincing is precisely how it would add to the charisma of the faction, and as you suggested yourself, terror is more cool for a faction of nightmares. Note that I'm all for ideas to be thrown that way, and that I hope that when I reject one it does not discourage others to be posted.

Also, the faction is updated to 0.13.0, all changes are mentioned in the original post. I believe almost all the reasons of these changes have been precised in the previous posts, but if anyone is curious about a point in particular I'm willing to develop it.

[krotop]

*Update bump*
No new gameplay features or change, but a rather nice update on sprites. Since this is a big step toward good conditions of playing, I thought it was worth noticing it, even more as they got a really enthusiastic feedback.

The occasion for me to thank again the people who contribute to the development of this faction, I feel very lucky to work with them.

Edit :
For 0.15, it'll be more difficult to level an egg, the cat line will do a bit less damages and the cat itself will have 2 less hps. For the spring to come, some WML has been cleaned up, and mystic x has provided the faction with more great arts.


Following the suggestions of FreeAsABeer, I will probably go for an AMLA system for the creepers, with very low xps requirements. I'm planning to code the following the next week-end unless some discussion brings better ideas or uncover problems with the one I propose :

- Xp requirement will be 11, making it 8xps at 70% settings, with an increase of 25% xps at each level.
- As soon as a creeper benefits from an AMLA, the graphic will change from to
in order to be more distinguishable from the "novice" creepers
- the creepers will get +1 max hp each time, and alternatively +2 regen ability and +1 damage, beginning with the +2 regen feat.
- After reaching the 4th AMLA, thus having got 16hps, regen+4 and 7-1 sting attack, the graphic will change from to
- After reaching the 8th AMLA, thus having 20hps, regenerate ability, and 9-1 sting attack, the AMLA will go back to standard +3hps.

Edit2 : Done.

[krotop]

Update bump.

More cool sprites by mysticX, change of the silly eyeball attack, and at last the scythe attack of the spectre of death got rid of. Also a few fixes. I wish you good games with this new version.

[krotop]

Update bump.

A few stat changes proposed by FAAB, art polish by mysticX, and code polish and feature addition by Mist. Open for arguments as always, or explanation if the changelog isn't clear enough.

Edit: the non-standard traits got broken on 0.18, it is now fixed with 0.19.
bis: less blink on Meloen castle, and fixed tornado form on castle with 0.20

[FAAB]

Update bump.
0.18.0 release on Tue Apr 21st, 2009 :
[...]
* stats change under FAAB impulsion:
- quake form melee decreased from 6-3 to 5-3 and ranged from 9-1 to 6-1
- whirlpool ranged attack decreased from 9-1 to 6-1
- sandstorm and tornado mp costs on cave and fungus are increased to 3.

I take the opportunity of this release focusing on the unstable elemental to share my view on him/them.

The unstable elemental is a unit quite difficult to grasp due to its unconventional role and its changing forms.
I see him primely (in the default form) as a scout with his long range, fast move type. Compared to other scouts, his price and his attacks are quite similar. His resistances are quite weak but that should be balanced by the fact that he got the terrain_link ability. Taking into account the most often seen terrains in default maps, three variations are usual: quake (hill/cave), bramble (forest) and whirlpool (water).
Considering the high penalty of the meloen's on water (no dedicated units for water, all flyers being slowed there), I see the whirlpool form as the standard fighter form that should be able to match (somehow) with naga and mermen on lakes. Speaking of damages, the elemental does more raw damage (melee 4-4 + some range) than them but given the relative high price and the bad resistances, he could have trouble holding against an army of swimmers. However that match-up could be more even when we consider that, while being slowed, the flyers are still able the get on water and have decent defense there. I see then the fighter as having something close to the needed stats.
The forest linked form now, if we compared it to the water form (seen as the basic fighting form), got quite a boost in resistance, balanced by a reduced mobility. This form can be seen as a kind of wose making as much damage in melee (8-2) as the water form. However, as it get an additional slow special on his range attack, this form is tricky to handle. Like the wose, he is weak to both arcane and fire which damage types are mostly available through range units. Taking the risk to get the slowed as retaliation is a pain, making it hard to hit well. On top of that, is seems that the slow ability combined with charge and drain in the same faction might be too good to have. Therefore, I would tend to think that the range attack could be removed at once.
The hill form also exchanges movement for resistance to the water form while it does a similar raw damage (melee 5-3, range 6-1). I see it as a steadfast variant of the fighter form. It is different from the forest form in the way he doesn't leave any weakness to leverage (except arcane, common to all forms) . The second difference with the forest form is that in default maps, we can find some villages that are aliases to hill/cave while none is alias to forest. The situation is thus: having a 8-MP flyer that can steal villages, than switches to form that gets good def (50%), good resistance all around (10-20%) and would make a 5-3 melee retaliation when you want to take him out. This situation looks to me like a potential abuse and I would limit the melee to a 6-2.

Sorry for the long talk but I hope it will help reduce the impression of random "stats change under FAAB impulsion".

NB: seems like the stats in game and the stats in help got different for the unstable elemental - quake form.

[krotop]

At very first, I'd like to do some apologies if I gave the impression that you were doing "random suggestions" with my comments, that certainly wasn't my intention. When I said those change were made under your impulsion, it was instead to credit you for having this idea, because I think it wouldn't be fair to grant myself all the merit of the balance improvements. When I decide to implement one of your suggestion, it can't be denied there is a confidence factor I have developped through our games and discussions, but I also give some thought on your proposal and when it's adopted it's definitely because I see merit in it. As I see it, the current balance state couldn't have been reached without these "impulsions" of yours, and whether I accept or disagree, I always have care and respect of your proposals.

Now, coming back to your recent suggestions, I am, to be fair, a bit surprised by your worries, because our experience of the faction is about the same by now and yet we have a very different feeling of it.
For instance I didn't see any unbreakable defense from Meloen through our games, despite the elemental defensive forms. The bramble's low defense makes it an easy prey to blade melee units, with less retaliation than the wose, and although it will probably take less damages from fire/arcane ranged attacks, it doesn't have the same hp amount either, or regeneration. Actually, we almost never used the bramble form as a line holder (I recall once against several spearmen), but rather as a "threatening to slow" unit, using its slow powers from non-forest hexes, which made it exposed for the opponent turn. Your suggestion means shifting the bramble form's defensive ability from decent to extremely poor in my humble opinion, something that we don't want for a faction that is already bad at defending. That being said, I admit the charge/slow combo is very powerful (drain/slow is not that much to be feared), and could be a matter of concern, but from the games we played so far, I personnaly got the feeling that this combo was more needed than overpowering the faction. The slow attack could be removed for that reason, but not bluntly, it would probably come with a change in price and/or other form's stats, because again, without the slow attack the bramble is about useless.
For the village stealing abuse of the quake form, I have to point that it happens only for cave villages. The unit shifts to quake there for consistence reason, but it is easy to make it remain tornado form if there is really abuse there (something we saw once only, and because the flying forms had a mp cost flaw on cave and fungus). I don't think changing 5-3 to 6-2 would solve anything on the village stealing matter, and this proposal too is worsening the already bad Meloen's defense. I'd say we play again (with the fixed flying movetype) the maps involving cave villages, such as Sulla,Onis or Basilik, and we try to see if there is abuse.

And thanks for the NB, I need to fix that indeed.

[FAAB]

First of all, I want to make clear that my previous message, was my state of mind on the unstable elemental at the day of yesterday. Quite awkwardly, I add some directions for future changes that could be rightly taken as change requests, but that is not how I meant it. My point is that with the current stats, the elemental still doesn't fit in the room that I made for him when I use/face the faction. It is then a discrepancy between my vision of the unit, and how it actually is.

The slow attack could be removed for that reason, but not bluntly, it would probably come with a change in price and/or other form's stats, because again, without the slow attack the bramble is about useless.

Changing stats of another form (up, I assume), would raise in me a question: how do you want that unit, with some stronger forms and weaker forms, or with all forms equal in power but different in flavor ? I would see the later as the target to reach. That is why I think of getting the forest form toned down as it is better than the water form according to me. On the other hand, I would also consider it would be fair to have some reduction in price to match the stats.

For the village stealing abuse of the quake form, I have to point that it happens only for cave villages. The unit shifts to quake there for consistence reason, but it is easy to make it remain tornado form if there is really abuse there (something we saw once only, and because the flying forms had a mp cost flaw on cave and fungus). I don't think changing 5-3 to 6-2 would solve anything on the village stealing matter, and this proposal too is worsening the already bad Meloen's defense. I'd say we play again (with the fixed flying movetype) the maps involving cave villages, such as Sulla,Onis or Basilik, and we try to see if there is abuse.

I was mainly thinking at a hill village on Hamlet. But it seems there is none (was it changed recently or is my recollection wrong?). As a side note, there are still some hill/mountain village in Hornshark island, Fallenstar lake and Sulla's ruins (quite far from the front line for the 2 later, making it a minor issue).

PS: I take for granted you meant sablestone delta instead of Sulla's ruins in your list.

[krotop]

Update Bump.

A few fixes needed to be done. Appart from that, I took the opportunity of this new release to power up the debuff potential of the howling darkness. I hope this will make it a more viable, yet not overpowered, unit. It used to reduced by 15% the opponent units, generally making your unhatched units received 1 less damage per strike in retaliation when attacking, sometimes 0, and rarely 2. By increasing it to 25% debuff in damage, the unhatched now receives regularly 2 less damage per strikes.