Khalifate gameplay thread (feedback on balance and bugs)

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Wintermute
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Re: Khalifate feedback thread

Post by Wintermute »

Version 0.7 is up on the 1.8 addon server. There are several changes, here is the relevant part of the changelog:
*** Version 0.7 ***
Naffat: melee attack renamed to "naphtha attack", xp 38->44, cost 17->19, hp 32->30.
Qatif-al-nar: melee attack renamed to "naphtha attack", melee -> 10-2, ranged -> 8-3.
Tineen: melee attack renamed to "naphtha attack", melee -> 10-3.
Khaiyal: cost 20->21.
Falcon: cost 10->11.
Jundi: xp 35->44.
Arif: xp 40->47.
Hakim: xp 33->39.
Renamed unit ids, hopefully eliminating OOS errors...
The main thrust of this was to hopefully fix the OOS errors, but I made some basic changes as well. Going forward, please only post replays of this version. If these turn out to be reasonable changes then I'll update them in trunk as well.

This should help the UD matchup quite a bit, though I doubt it fixes it. Hopefully we can at least see some less one-sided replays and go from there. If the replays keep coming in at the rate they are then we could have another version with some more specific targeted changes in a week or so. 2v2 replays are also especially wanted.
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Kolbur
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Re: Khalifate feedback thread

Post by Kolbur »

I know Noy thinks replays are not useful at all and just distractions but I will post them anyway. :P
Keep in mind that they all were played with version 0.6.
Attachments
loys_vs_khal_2.gz
Loyalists vs Khalifate on Sablestone Delta
(29.07 KiB) Downloaded 242 times
northerners_vs_khalifate.gz
(17.5 KiB) Downloaded 232 times
2v2_khals.gz
2v2 with a Undead/Khalifate mirror on Clash
(33.38 KiB) Downloaded 234 times
DrakeKing
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Re: Khalifate feedback thread

Post by DrakeKing »

first test of Drake vs Khalifate on Den of Onis. Surprised him a bit with my recruit since we both choose factions before. I have a suggestion to players in future games. All these test are being done KNOWING your against khalifa thus meaning you can recruit anti Khalifa units. I suggest we try our best to get a "normal recruit" for our initial recruits as to make for a real simulation since most players choose random. Just a suggestion maybe others disagree? Anyways replay attached and more to come hopefully.
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Drake_vs_Khalifate_Den_of_Onis.gz
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KK_Me
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Re: Khalifate feedback thread

Post by KK_Me »

I don't know if anybody else has mentioned this or had the same issue: some of the units just pile on experience after lvl 3 even exceeding their maximum without leveling, so I had units with max XP+7/max XP.

Now for the faction itself: I think it's a very interesting faction indeed, but there are a lot of issues with the balance. I fought against drakes twice and won easily because of the no penalty high damage pierce attack of the horseman. Also considering the high HP and good lvl1 healer I think 60% defense on hills is too much; 50% would be fine.

All in all I could see this becoming a default faction, but it's quite a long way.
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Re: Khalifate feedback thread

Post by DrakeKing »

Game 2 of my drakes vs Mint's Khalifate this time on Clearing Gushes. I learned a valuable lesson this game don't go mass saurian s! From the feel of things I think daytime drakes are the way to go vs this faction with augurs as support though haven't played enough to really make that statement finalized. Secondly I made some bad mistakes this game such as throwing away a lvl 2 Saurian so it was more my bad play and recruit then the faction vs faction balance issue. I am surprised to admit that I feel the balance in this match up is much closer then I originally anticipated. Granted I think it still favors Khalifate but not anymore then Loy vs Drake favors Loys. I also still feel something needs to be done with the horse unit, whether that be more cold weakness or -20% pierce weakness or not having 60 defense on hills... Once I get more replays and games in I will have a better idea though but for now here is the replay.
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Drake_vs_Khalifate_clearning_gushes.gz
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Re: Khalifate feedback thread

Post by Doc Paterson »

DrakeKing wrote:Game 2 of my drakes vs Mint's Khalifate this time on Clearing Gushes.
Thumbs down for using questionable non-default maps in the search for factional balance. :P

Might that be one obscuring factor too many?
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DrakeKing
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Re: Khalifate feedback thread

Post by DrakeKing »

clearing gushes isn't a default map? also after a little more thought and some playing around game play im curious if the Jundi is to powerful a unit vs the drakes *and maybe the orcs though i am not specialized with this faction*. It seriously pokes the hell out of everything the drakes have and its impossible to retaliate them.. Will need to do some more testing to be sure but I seriously think Drakes have a hard time countering that unit as he is now. A thought of maybe making the faction be cold weakness all around? would help the UD as well as Augurs be more useful as well as fit the theme of desert folk. Note that I am trying to keep balance all around and I apologize if my post seems to only focus on the drake match up its just the one I have the best understanding of and feel I can help with most.
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Re: Khalifate feedback thread

Post by Madlok »

Why are all the replays in this thread do not work (on 1.96)?
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Wintermute
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Re: Khalifate feedback thread

Post by Wintermute »

Madlok wrote:Why are all the replays in this thread do not work (on 1.96)?
All replays posted so far are from the 1.8 addon, as it came out somewhat before 1.9.6. For the time being I think it will be more useful to play the addon for balancing because I can tweak it much faster. Hopefully we can get to the point where things are more balanced by the next development release.

Replays from 1.9.6 are still going to be very useful - and most especially testing for things like missing sounds, broken/wrong attack icons and such. Or real problems (like the corrupted savegames as posted above). So testing on the 1.9.6 side is critical so that we can work the bugs out for the next release, but the balance won't improve there until the next release, unfortunately.

behind on replays, maybe I can catch up tomorrow. Those of you on stable, please do download version 0.7 and see if it fixes the OOS errors.
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DrakeKing
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Re: Khalifate feedback thread

Post by DrakeKing »

quicky reply wintermute to say that No it hasn't fixed it yet at least not for me. No idea what the issue could be? for some reason in our games people were reading different stats such as not being able to get on corral with certain units? You can see the chat in the clearing gush game I posted. I have not got to the bottom of what the problem is with this yet though.
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Re: Khalifate feedback thread

Post by Wintermute »

DrakeKing wrote:quicky reply wintermute to say that No it hasn't fixed it yet at least not for me. No idea what the issue could be? for some reason in our games people were reading different stats such as not being able to get on corral with certain units? You can see the chat in the clearing gush game I posted. I have not got to the bottom of what the problem is with this yet though.
Bah, this makes me suspect that I wasn't careful enough and forgot to change the movetypes around - I don't know if I can get another version out today or not but I'll try to get it fixed ASAP. In the mean time, maybe trying on 1.9.6 would be useful, as there should be no OOS over there and bug reports or other problems would be most welcome (plus it has the cav and archer change over there).
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Re: Khalifate feedback thread

Post by Wintermute »

KK_Me wrote:I don't know if anybody else has mentioned this or had the same issue: some of the units just pile on experience after lvl 3 even exceeding their maximum without leveling, so I had units with max XP+7/max XP.

Now for the faction itself: I think it's a very interesting faction indeed, but there are a lot of issues with the balance. I fought against drakes twice and won easily because of the no penalty high damage pierce attack of the horseman. Also considering the high HP and good lvl1 healer I think 60% defense on hills is too much; 50% would be fine.

All in all I could see this becoming a default faction, but it's quite a long way.
I filed a bug report about this too. Please don't hesitate to file bug reports when you get problems!
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Skrim
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Re: Khalifate feedback thread

Post by Skrim »

One stat anomaly I noticed.

The Khaiyal-Faris-Mufariq line has consistent resists (20% arcane, 10% impact, -20% cold, 30% blade) and the Rami-Saree-Jawal line has consistent resists (20% arcane, -10% impact, -10% pierce, 10% blade), but the Qanas-Hadaf line of shared advancements first uses Rami resists on the Qanas and then switches to Khaiyal resists on leveling again into the Hadaf.

That is strange. So a a Khaiyal would lose its cold weakness but its other resists would get lowered... and then it would go back to normal at level 3. What.

The only way I can see the hybrid working is if you take the best of both resists - the physical resists of the Khaiyal and the cold lack-of-a-weakness of the Rami and give it to the Qanas and Hadaf.

Or just remove the Qanas as an advancement of the Khaiyal. As I see it, the Faris would be chosen much more often as the giant poke is really a big part of the Khaiyal's shtick, and the Rami and Jundi provide plenty of ranged pierce as is. And unless you're desperate to escape the cold weakness, I wouldn't see why you'd want to trade down your physical resists either.

Edit: It's not just resists, the movement modifiers and terrain defense also do this flip-flop thing. That's even more problematic.
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Re: Khalifate feedback thread

Post by Alarantalara »

I don't know if this is a useful replay as I felt a bit lost as the Khalifate, but I'm providing it anyway.
The out-of-sync errors reported occurred whenever I recruited a falcon.
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Atz
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Re: Khalifate feedback thread

Post by Atz »

DrakeKing wrote:also after a little more thought and some playing around game play im curious if the Jundi is to powerful a unit vs the drakes *and maybe the orcs though i am not specialized with this faction*. It seriously pokes the hell out of everything the drakes have and its impossible to retaliate them.. Will need to do some more testing to be sure but I seriously think Drakes have a hard time countering that unit as he is now. A thought of maybe making the faction be cold weakness all around? would help the UD as well as Augurs be more useful as well as fit the theme of desert folk. Note that I am trying to keep balance all around and I apologize if my post seems to only focus on the drake match up its just the one I have the best understanding of and feel I can help with most.
Another way to nerf the Jundi against Drakes specifically would be to change its ranged attack to a throwing axe which is blade instead of pierce. This would obviously make it subject to the usual Drake blade resistance... though it would then be better against saurians, and also chance balance against a few units from other factions.

I had also considered weakness to cold as a way of boosting UD and saurians. The nice thing about it is that the other factions have no cold damage, so it's good for targeting those specific matchups, especially UD. It also meshes nicely with the desert flavour.
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