Balance Suggestions re:Ghosts, Cavalry, Ghouls

[Lone_Isle]

Is everyone satisfied with the balance of these 3 units?

TL;DR version: I think Cav arcane resist should be reduced to -20% to make them weaker gainst UD. Ghost price should be reduced to 19 or even 18g. Ghoul price reduced to 15g.

I think Cavalry are currently slightly op, while Ghosts and Ghouls and underpowered.
This is specially relevant in the loy vs ud matchup.

But I don't play either of those races. I play drakes only. To me Cavs are ok, but it is in relation to UD that I really can't figure out a cost effective way to counter them. Again I'm not really sure here and have nothing to back this up apart from watching recent games.

Ghosts I feel are "overbalanced" right now. It seems the arcane resists on everything have been a careful calculation intended to make sure Ghosts don't become runaway insanely powerful. This is understandable given the potential of such a unit on a village hex, where its heals are twice as effective and its drains may potentially give it extremely high survivability...
but i feel that most players are too savvy to really let Ghosts shine and exercise their intended role.

most of the time Ghosts are just shot down with ranged attacks before they've even had a chance to do any significant damage. Now I know this is more from careless use, but something just feels off about a unit that costs 20g with no offense and no real lasting power(against players who know what they're doing).

Ghouls are another unit I feel is overpriced for its actual effect in most games.


What do you guys think?

[Scatha]

I won't say too much about balance (I'll just note that skeleton archers are pretty good against cavalry).

Changing the arcane resistance of cavalry would really break the feel of the game, though. Generally more magical beings have lower arcane resists. Essentially all humans get the 'mundane' value of 20% arcane resist. While exceptions make some sense for mages, they really don't seem to for cavalry.

[Velensk]

You've recently missed a large discussion on cavalry balance. The short version is that the multiplayer devs are not going to change it.

I've never had a problem with the other two, especially ghouls.

[Caphriel]

And how would those changes affect other matchups? Cheaper ghosts would certainly help the Undead against Knalgans, but also a bit against Northerners. Cheaper Ghouls likewise.

but i feel that most players are too savvy to really let Ghosts shine and exercise their intended role.

What do you think the "intended role" of ghosts is, then?

[Reepurr]

Personally, I use Ghosts as what they are: awesome all-rounders. Ghosts can be used to scout out a village and hold it well against any melee or ranged unit that doesn't have fire or arcane, then even deal retaliation damage thanks to their wail and touch! Half the time, they can behave as though they were actually on a village if they attack an archer!

More seriously, I use them as scouts at the start of the fight (unlike bats, they can hold a village if a wolf rider surprise-attacks them), then once I have reasonable income, I simply send them at the enemy's rear line, picking off low-hp stragglers and fearing only really large numbers of archers or fire/arcane units. And to me, they're quite good at this, so in my opinion, they already are more than a mere scout. (And if you level them...wow)


On the subject of Cavs: already been discussed, people generally said 'no', there are already very good ways of countering Cavs' ridiculous resistances - that's what UD have skeleton archers for, for example.


Ghouls - I see no problem with Ghouls. Perhaps you intend them to be used as a fighter unit. They aren't, more of a utility unit. They have high resistance, so when your skeletons are being slaughtered by Arcane/Fire, a Ghoul can cover their escape. A Ghoul, used in moderation, can also send annoying units to the back line before you're ready to deal with them, using poison. Handy.


In other words, I don't agree with anything you've said, except the Ghosts-can-scout bit.

[Rowanthepreacher]

Cavalry: As has been said, it's not terribly difficult to kill them.

Ghosts: If you reduced the cost no-one would ever use anything else against knalgans.

Ghouls: The metapods of the Wesnoth universe. Like thieves, they're one of the units you have to take special care to level up, but you'll be rewarded if you do. With mediocre resistances and terrible terrain defences they're really not frontline troops.

[Velensk]

Cavalry: As has been said, it's not terribly difficult to kill them.

Ghosts: If you reduced the cost no-one would ever use anything else against knalgans.

Ghouls: The metapods of the Wesnoth universe. Like thieves, they're one of the units you have to take special care to level up, but you'll be rewarded if you do. With mediocre resistances and terrible terrain defences they're really not frontline troops.

Despite generally arguing in the same direction I do, you've managed to not say anything I agree with.

Cavalry are not easy to kill if played well. Skeleton archers can dice them at night but the problem is that cavalry are fast enough that you won't catch them at night. Their resistances to most everything else makes it so that they don't take much retaliation.

Ghosts are great against Knalgans but hardly so good that they don't need the support of something that can actually do damage.

Ghouls are great level 1s, there's nothing mediocre about their resistances. A spearman has mediocre resistances (0 to everything except 20% to arcane) or a grunt (just strait 0 to everything) but ghouls resist blade, piercing, fire, arcane, and cold. They have average terrain defenses, in fact better than humans due to 60% in mushrooms (IIRC). On the other hand, they don't really get much for leveling them. You go from 4-3 (fearless) damage to 7-3 but the main threat of your attack is still the poison (most level 1 melee units can do almost as well). You get more hitpoints as is standard but not an incredible amount more, you gain the feeding ability which is nice but requires feeding lots of exp to a max level unit to do anything and it's not on a unit that is an extreamly powerful killer. Ghouls are front line troops, they are the things you put on your front line so that the enemy does not want to attack it because of their general resilience and the certainty of poison. They can also be used to poison ranged units without taking much retaliation which is useful.

[Rowanthepreacher]

Heh. I managed to completely disagree with you while agreeing with you

Cavalry have to come in close to attack anything, at which point it becomes fairly easy to pin them down and bring in the skeleton archers as support. The cavalry can't really fight their way out, so unless you're backing them up with slower units, it's done for (Even with the back up, it becomes a race to see who can get their support in first).

I've never seen an all-ghost army vs knalgans, but I reckon that they would level up too fast and end up treating the poor dwarves (and assorted brigands) to a death by slow pecking. The knalgan anti-ghost strategies usually rely on catching them alone and surrounding them. With a wall of ghosts, the damage is too spread to reliably break the formation.

I was comparing ghouls to the other undead, but you're right, comparing them to an unusually resistant faction isn't fair. How often do you see mushrooms? They have the terrain defences of heavy troops but they're not. Poison isn't a terribly effective deterrent, especially against a couple of high damage units (ranged especially), of which every faction has a few.
When you upgrade them, suddenly they can last for more than five minutes in a brawl and deal enough damage to make the subsequent poison actually matter. We can't even agree on feeding, because I can't see any use in it at all. +1 max hp per kill, whoopie! I'd like to see that changed, but it's entrenched now, so we'll never get a less crappy ability for the ghouls

[Velensk]

Proper use of formation can make cavalry not at all easy to pin down.

I have seen all ghost armies against knalgans. It didn't end well for the undead in all except the occasion where the knalgan player never recruited only dwarves. In one of the times when I was the knalgan player it was me who was leveling up units first. Trappers were easy to get, and made mopping up the other ghosts easy. Knaglan anti-ghost tactics can simply rely on being able to last longer, and ghosts drain can only help them in that department so much, especially against ranged/high defense attackers.

I will point out that ghouls are resistant even by undeads standards, they resist fire and arcane which no other undead really does, they also suffer no weakness to blunt. They are less resistant to pierce/blade than skeletons but many factions will be using less of that than normal. Poison is a plenty effective deterrent in many situations. On the condition that you can keep them off your villages, poisoning a full health unit, even if you don't do a lot of damage at the same time is either forcing a retreat, or giving you an easy kill down the road, and if they retreat poisoned it will take them an extra turn or two to come back.

[Rowanthepreacher]

Well, you're the one with more experience here. I'll stop arguing with you and go study my ghouls some more

[Rigor]

cavs are going to be changed ("small nerf"), because of a flood of replays that were provided proving their over-usefulness in countless situations vs orcs, but only in 1.9.6 from what ive gathered, and the discussion what exactly is going to be changed, is still going on. currently we r at page 12 http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php ... 21#p486121 and talking about giving the orcish archer a bit more power. but fun to hear some talk about giving ghouls more power.