game balance

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Red_Knight
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game balance

Post by Red_Knight »

i think there are some units who are not perfectly balanced and i will put my thoughts about then here:

the mage is too expensive, he deals a lot of dmg but he is so frail, he should have the same hp and price as an adept

the wolf rider is too expensive, he is too frail and deals low damage when compared to a cavalaryman or elf scout

the dwarf fighter and dwarf shooter should have 30% armor against blade, impact and pierce since they are supposed to e heavy units. acctually they just have 20% defense but people just atack then because of their poor evade

poacher should deals 3x6 or 4x5 damage instead of just 4x4, or they could be less expensive instead

knalgan alliance needs something to kill ghosts and woses

merman hunter should deals 3x6 instead of 3x5 ranged dmg

drakes need something to counter dark adepts

undead needs something to counter woses

so, i think these changes could make the game more balanced, specially in multiplayer. what do you guys think about it?
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Heindal
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Re: game balance

Post by Heindal »

I will just share my thoughts with you. It's just my opinion.
the mage is too expensive, he deals a lot of dmg but he is so frail, he should have the same hp and price as an adept
He has higher ranged damage than the dark adept and even a melee attack. The mage can turn into two of the strongest units in the game, once he levels up. So he should be more expensive. I think because of the three attacks with 70% it is one of the strongest damage dealer in the game, so he deserves lower hp. But he should never walk alone. Where is Orisa, when you need her?
the wolf rider is too expensive, he is too frail and deals low damage when compared to a cavalaryman or elf scout
The rider is a scout and formidable in taking villages. For this purpose it is good enough.
It can counter bats and other fast units (except spearman).
poacher should deals 3x6 or 4x5 damage instead of just 4x4, or they could be less expensive instead
Poacher is one of the strongest ranged units already. After all it´s a level 1, with 4 attacks!
knalgan alliance needs something to kill ghosts and woses
Thunderguard. Three thunderguards end any ghost or respectively other unit.
merman hunter should deals 3x6 instead of 3x5 ranged dmg
I`d agree, if he would be bad in melee, but he doesn't. He is a good all-rounder.
drakes need something to counter dark adepts
Any two drakes, as they are all good in melee and can deal damage without taking damage.
If the adept survives and has his turn, he will have to defend against their fire-breath.
undead needs something to counter woses
One by one, no. But two dark adepts have enough firepower to do that, if they attack at night. They could even survive the counter-attack at night. As their attack is magical, it has a high chance to hit, even so the wose is hiding in the wood. Their defence in forest isn't bad either.
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MoonyDragon
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Re: game balance

Post by MoonyDragon »

the mage is too expensive, he deals a lot of dmg but he is so frail, he should have the same hp and price as an adept
The mage is a unit that has 1. high damage, while being 2. reliable in order to fulfill his role in bursting enemies from highly defensible positions. To prevent the mage from making other units obsolete, he 1. has low HP and 2. costs a lot. Being low HP, he relies on protection from other damage-dealing units, which confines his use to situations where you have already enough damage, but need reliable damage to make a breakthrough. His high cost further confines the mage to a specialist unit, which will get recruited only if the need arises.
The reason why DA's have more HP is that undead are generally worse at defending their damage dealers.
the wolf rider is too expensive, he is too frail and deals low damage when compared to a cavalaryman or elf scout
The wolf rider is meant to be a scouting unit, not a fighter. But he needs only 30 XP to level up into two very deadly units.
the dwarf fighter and dwarf shooter should have 30% armor against blade, impact and pierce since they are supposed to e heavy units. acctually they just have 20% defense but people just atack then because of their poor evade
Warning: BIAS AHEAD
Dwarvish units have already obscene amounts of armor, which is supposed to counter their "slowness" (except on flat, they are usually quicker than humans) and "poor" defense (they become ninjas in caves, hills and mountains). Don't get me started on their damage.
poacher should deals 3x6 or 4x5 damage instead of just 4x4, or they could be less expensive instead
I agree that the poacher is weaker than his Bowman counterpart, and I too would reduce the cost of the Poacher (by 1 or 2) and Trapper (by 3 or 5) (which costs MORE than the Longbowman, despite having 6 HP and 4/6/8 damage less, depending on ToD).
knalgan alliance needs something to kill ghosts and woses
Dwarvish Thunderers deal 9 damage to Ghosts, which means that two of them can kill a Ghost (if lucky). As for woses, they can be felled by Dwarvish Fighters and Ulfserkers at night. If you lose a unit in the process, remember that a dwarf costs less than a wose.
merman hunter should deals 3x6 instead of 3x5 ranged dmg
While I do not know whether increasing his damage fixes the problem, I am convinced that the Merman Hunter is made obsolete by the Mermaid Initiate.
In my opinion, these two units should be somewhat tweaked to give them more distinct roles. But for the balance of the default era, I would increase the HP of the Merman Hunter by 3.
drakes need something to counter dark adepts
Drakes are already supreme in melee, while DA's have no melee retaliation. What more do you want?
(If you mean that the DA's cold attacks are too strong against drakes, I inform you that the fire attacks of drakes are too strong against undead.)
undead needs something to counter woses
Undead in general are very weak, so I agree. But the solution would necessitate a rework of the entire faction, which is outside the scope of this thread.
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gnombat
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Re: game balance

Post by gnombat »

Red_Knight wrote: March 13th, 2020, 7:12 pm i think there are some units who are not perfectly balanced and i will put my thoughts about then here:
Note that units are not intended to be perfectly balanced. For example, mages are intended to be weak, and it's expected you'll need to protect them with other types of units.

Factions are intended to be perfectly balanced (as much as is possible), and I think many players would probably agree with you about the undead being weak (but see here for another opinion).
Red_Knight
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Re: game balance

Post by Red_Knight »

I see, so i should analyze how units perform on their current factions, instead of comparing units individually? because if we compare units like the dark adept and the mage i think the adept is a stronger unit, if one side just recruit mages and the other just recruit adepts the adepts whoul win because of lower cost. But the adept is less expensive because he is more important for undead than mage is for humans?

also about the dwarves what i meant to say is: when a dwarf reach a castle, hill or montain he becomes nearly invencible, but when he steps on open ground hes not more durable than a spearman (and he should be since hes a slow expensive heavy infantry while the spear is just a medium infatry). So i think if he gets better armor but less defence on those specific terrains he whoul be less terrain dependent.
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MoonyDragon
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Re: game balance

Post by MoonyDragon »

Red_Knight wrote: March 16th, 2020, 7:57 pm I see, so i should analyze how units perform on their current factions, instead of comparing units individually? because if we compare units like the dark adept and the mage i think the adept is a stronger unit, if one side just recruit mages and the other just recruit adepts the adepts whoul win because of lower cost. But the adept is less expensive because he is more important for undead than mage is for humans?
To me, the balance of a unit is determined by both the faction-vs-faction and the unit-vs-unit aspect.

On the unit-vs-unit level, every unit gets a certain amount of basic power in relation to HP, XP, cost, dmg and everything else. These then may be manipulated according to that unit's design, while balancing every strength with an accompanying weakness. I explained this process with the mage, but every individual unit and archetype such as scout or fighter has their own balancing philosophy too.

On the faction-vs-faction level, multiple units of different archetypes are combined into one faction, which are balanced just as their respective units are. And it is here where faction-specific advantages and weaknesses are placed on top of existing unit-vs-unit balance, which causes your discontent with the mage and DA.

Unlike loyalists, undead have less defensive capabilities and are much more dependent upon their magical damage-dealers than the loyalists are. To balance this weakness, DA's have more HP and a lower cost than the mage, even if this means that the previous unit-vs-unit balance between these units is disrupted. That's how I, personally, see the situation.
Red_Knight wrote: March 16th, 2020, 7:57 pm also about the dwarves what i meant to say is: when a dwarf reach a castle, hill or montain he becomes nearly invencible, but when he steps on open ground hes not more durable than a spearman (and he should be since hes a slow expensive heavy infantry while the spear is just a medium infatry). So i think if he gets better armor but less defence on those specific terrains he whoul be less terrain dependent.
As for dwarves, I think a tradeoff of defenses (-10% on hills / mountains) for higher resistances and HP might be a good change indeed. I too have been somewhat bothered by their extreme terrain dependency (most units gain +10% on hills, while dwarves get +30% compared to flat).
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GrandMarshalEmil
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Re: game balance

Post by GrandMarshalEmil »

Guys, wondering why mermaid initiates and thugs aren't in the recruit list for factions. Also, why aren't the Orcish leaders and Human Sergeants available to recruit? Personally, I also think that the Runesmith should be added to the Dwarvish Fighter line. Any thoughts?
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Poison
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Re: game balance

Post by Poison »

Initiate has magic she can beat warrior or Hunter 1 vs 1. Thug can greatly imbalance undead. Orcish leaders + gobo spam can imba ag Drakes. The Sergeant doesn't have anything to lead unless you add peasants, that will also hurt Drakes. The Runesmith is a way for Dwarves for access to magic with some effort, maybe its a good addition idk.
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GrandMarshalEmil
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Re: game balance

Post by GrandMarshalEmil »

Wouldn't nerfing the Initiate's starting HP remedy that? Agree with the points on the leaders, but Thugs...maybe upping their base cost, or even nerfing their resistances would be fine? Runesmith I've always wanted to see since forever.
Teotl
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Re: game balance

Post by Teotl »

GrandMarshalEmil wrote: March 29th, 2020, 8:42 am Wouldn't nerfing the Initiate's starting HP remedy that? Agree with the points on the leaders, but Thugs...maybe upping their base cost, or even nerfing their resistances would be fine? Runesmith I've always wanted to see since forever.

If you nerf the initiate's HP then 2 problems arise.
The more obvious one is that it would inbalance campaigns. But if you nerf the HP too much then the unit wont actually be worth using, right now she only has 27 is water bound and only has 1 resistance (cold). If we lower that hp by lets say 3 then its just going to die quick, for example an orcish grunt (who will deal 12-2 minimum) can 2 shot her in the night which is huge when you consider the massive 19 gold cost.

Also we are trying to introduce the dunefolk and in 1.15 they have a new aquatic unit (naga dirkfang) so I must ask do we really need 5th water based unit?

Upping the thug's cost would just get rid of what makes that unit unique. If it costed something like 15 gold it would be only useful vs undead since the 1 gold more dwarfish fighter is better overall (amusing we give the alliance the thugs).
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GrandMarshalEmil
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Re: game balance

Post by GrandMarshalEmil »

Teotl wrote: March 29th, 2020, 5:22 pm
GrandMarshalEmil wrote: March 29th, 2020, 8:42 am Wouldn't nerfing the Initiate's starting HP remedy that? Agree with the points on the leaders, but Thugs...maybe upping their base cost, or even nerfing their resistances would be fine? Runesmith I've always wanted to see since forever.

If you nerf the initiate's HP then 2 problems arise.
The more obvious one is that it would inbalance campaigns. But if you nerf the HP too much then the unit wont actually be worth using, right now she only has 27 is water bound and only has 1 resistance (cold). If we lower that hp by lets say 3 then its just going to die quick, for example an orcish grunt (who will deal 12-2 minimum) can 2 shot her in the night which is huge when you consider the massive 19 gold cost.

Also we are trying to introduce the dunefolk and in 1.15 they have a new aquatic unit (naga dirkfang) so I must ask do we really need 5th water based unit?

Upping the thug's cost would just get rid of what makes that unit unique. If it costed something like 15 gold it would be only useful vs undead since the 1 gold more dwarfish fighter is better overall (amusing we give the alliance the thugs).
Then if such problems are present then there's no reason to NOT include them in the Default factions, right? I mean, if the Initiate has those problems, then she'll be reduced to being baby-sitted on land because of her bad evade and generally poor defense, and it's not going to be total dominance on water if we give her to say, the Alliance? Thugs...how about a resistances nerf, then? that way, he'll only on the attack and won't be as effective holding ground(which the Thug is already mediocre at)
.
Runesmiths please.
.
In retrospect, I just realized that all the units I've been advocating would be a fit for the already-strong Alliance. HAHAHA
Teotl
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Re: game balance

Post by Teotl »

GrandMarshalEmil wrote: March 31st, 2020, 1:40 am
Teotl wrote: March 29th, 2020, 5:22 pm
GrandMarshalEmil wrote: March 29th, 2020, 8:42 am Wouldn't nerfing the Initiate's starting HP remedy that? Agree with the points on the leaders, but Thugs...maybe upping their base cost, or even nerfing their resistances would be fine? Runesmith I've always wanted to see since forever.

If you nerf the initiate's HP then 2 problems arise.
The more obvious one is that it would inbalance campaigns. But if you nerf the HP too much then the unit wont actually be worth using, right now she only has 27 is water bound and only has 1 resistance (cold). If we lower that hp by lets say 3 then its just going to die quick, for example an orcish grunt (who will deal 12-2 minimum) can 2 shot her in the night which is huge when you consider the massive 19 gold cost.

Also we are trying to introduce the dunefolk and in 1.15 they have a new aquatic unit (naga dirkfang) so I must ask do we really need 5th water based unit?

Upping the thug's cost would just get rid of what makes that unit unique. If it costed something like 15 gold it would be only useful vs undead since the 1 gold more dwarfish fighter is better overall (amusing we give the alliance the thugs).
Then if such problems are present then there's no reason to NOT include them in the Default factions, right? I mean, if the Initiate has those problems, then she'll be reduced to being baby-sitted on land because of her bad evade and generally poor defense, and it's not going to be total dominance on water if we give her to say, the Alliance? Thugs...how about a resistances nerf, then? that way, he'll only on the attack and won't be as effective holding ground(which the Thug is already mediocre at)
.
Runesmiths please.
.
In retrospect, I just realized that all the units I've been advocating would be a fit for the already-strong Alliance. HAHAHA
But if we included weaker units into the factions, good players would not recruit them. It could have a negative effect on newer players trying to learn and picking sub optional recruits that have little to no use. The most important skill in wesnoth is recruiting the right unit, you need to choose the right unit and have to avoid stacking too many of 1 recruit or else you can get counter picked (e.g over recruiting dark adept could result in the opponent using ulfeskers or horseman to kill them but recruiting to little gives them options like heavy infantry man or dwarf fighers)

giving the alliance a water based unit could be disastrous. They are already effective at using terrain to make counter attacks and will win longer battles that way. Giving them a water resist makes that play style even stronger. The drawfs are good at killing other water based units with their resistances and they have access to a gryphons as well. On some maps water villages are super important and dwarfs struggle their, but every faction has maps were they are favored/unfavored on and most of the time one sided maps are not played. Besides gryphons are the strongest scout unit and can go after water villages too.

The one faction that could benefit from the initiate would be the dunefolk, but like I said they are already getting a water unit and 2 is just excessive. Maybe undead too, but that would make no sense at all.

Lowering the thugs resistances would be a hefty nerf and I think would just solidify the unit as an anti undead pick which is something that the dwarfs don't need.
Giving them to another faction just would not make sense lore wise, but maybe for the undead themselves having access to better impact could have a positive outcome. Right now the undead mirror match is silly, ghosts or bats only get villages and the skeletons just wall each other. Your stuck working with mostly dark adepts and mass recruiting walking corpse (sometimes ghouls can be used to defend). It ether ends quickly or stalls on and takes for ever; imo its not very fun. It would take a lot of effort to balance, but giving undead a tool to beat themselves is something I would want to try.

Runesmith could be a very strong leader possibly overpowered. but getting access to magical would help them a lot. Right now dwarfs hate relying so much on thundersticks and other low strikes attacks to gain momentum.
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