Era of High Sorcery

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Computer_Player
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Computer_Player »

Thnks for the update :)

1. I haven't been able to make the doubleclick work. I agree that double right click would be better than left tho since its less prone to accidental trigger.

2. Scribe has been pretty nerfed with flat 5 g (not even affected by efficient). you're basically throwing one level 1 unit for 3 scribes. That hurts since scribing doesn't actually dmg your enemy.

Nerfing it more by removing Battlemage bonus is a bit too much.

3. Chocos were strong but 5 g nerf makes it non spammable pretty neatly. Not sure yet how useful it is, but cost of horseman (similar unit) should be kept in mind too, noting that horseman has better resists than choco (but less mp)

4. The new menu looks neat and the targeting in the main battlefield is best GUI update. makes it more intuitive for newbies.

5. Will hold judgement on xp. but it eliminates the choco level up strat? at least you can level up even if not in battlefield which I like. Perhaps this will make the higher tiers actually usable
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Elvish_Pillager »

1. Thing is, I can only detect right-clicks by when a unit is deselected, so I actually CAN'T detect double-right-clicks. That said, I did some debugging yesterday and I found a way to reduce the spurious clicks by a lot.

2. Good! It's actually my intention for the "unusual skills" to all be slightly underpowered in PVP, so that they don't become obligatory and disadvantage newbies. Also, removing the battlemage bonus from scrolls is important for overall balance – if it turns out that I need to buff Scribe again, I will buff it in a different way.

3. It was 3g, not 5g. They are all-around better than Horsemen, although only by a little. And spamming them needn't be a good strategy any more than spamming Horsemen is good in Default.
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Elder2
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Elder2 »

Elvish_Pillager wrote:1. Thing is, I can only detect right-clicks by when a unit is deselected, so I actually CAN'T detect double-right-clicks. That said, I did some debugging yesterday and I found a way to reduce the spurious clicks by a lot.

2. Good! It's actually my intention for the "unusual skills" to all be slightly underpowered in PVP, so that they don't become obligatory and disadvantage newbies. Also, removing the battlemage bonus from scrolls is important for overall balance – if it turns out that I need to buff Scribe again, I will buff it in a different way.

3. It was 3g, not 5g. They are all-around better than Horsemen, although only by a little. And spamming them needn't be a good strategy any more than spamming Horsemen is good in Default.
You seem to be omitting a few things, in eohs you have woses, fire guardians, magic blast scrolls and dispell scrolls, all oft he mentioned are fairly common, while the pierce damage is not as abundant as it is in default, that makes chocoboner way more vulnerable than horseman in EoHS, eg i can lose 4 6g fire guardians to a single choco and that still would be a good trade, or i can just use dispell scroll on it. I think now you made my chocos underpowered, well if you want less variety be excluding my tactics from the viable meta - so be it, i will start spamming 6 g fire guardians then + dispell scribe. Now I have noticed that what ppl tend to do is spam fire guardians, I think with 6 g fire guardian this is the strongest possible strategy now.

I have given you my proposal of nerfing game breaking choco rushes by increasing their AP cost but making them 23 g, well you may even give them the old 24g cost back, just dont make them so utterly not cost-effective.
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Elvish_Pillager »

…So, on the one hand, I have Computer_Player telling me that Scribe is now underpowered. On the other hand, I have you telling me that using Scribe is part of the strongest possible strategy. I clearly need more evidence to decide on what the correct balance is. (You're even paying 3 skill points for the talent! I assume you're paying 3 skill points for it, anyway, since you also need Summoner to really spam Fire Guardians and Efficient to make them be 6g.)
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Elvish_Pillager »

Honestly, part of the problem here might be Efficient + Summoner? Or Efficient + expensive summons in general. The fair price for Chocobone is probably 24 or 25, but I can't make them 24 because then Efficient wizards will get them for 19, which is seriously overpowered. With normal spells, Efficient is effectively something like +5 gold per turn at best, but with Chocobone and Summoner, it can get as high as +15 gold per turn. I'm not sure whether this is a huge problem, though, because you probably don't have enough total gold to keep summoning 3 Chocobones turn after turn... (Basically, the current way is fair if you are limited by mana/gold, but unfair if you are limited by AP.)

If I remember right, at one point in EoHS history, Efficient actually didn't apply to summons at all, because I was worried about this issue. I don't think that's the way to go, but it is still kind of unfair that summons get a BIGGER bonus than other spells (because summons cost more than almost all other spells). And it's a flavor problem if Efficient is more important for summoners than Summoner is. I could switch Efficient to give a flat bonus of -2 or -3 mana per spell, but that just seems so boring…
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Computer_Player »

Elvish_Pillager wrote:…So, on the one hand, I have Computer_Player telling me that Scribe is now underpowered. On the other hand, I have you telling me that using Scribe is part of the strongest possible strategy. I clearly need more evidence to decide on what the correct balance is. (You're even paying 3 skill points for the talent! I assume you're paying 3 skill points for it, anyway, since you also need Summoner to really spam Fire Guardians and Efficient to make them be 6g.)
Oh my post isn't about underpoweredness or overpoweredness (yet), but rather a statement of observations to help in the balancing process.

I forgot to mention that Chocos are level 2s. Given that the soulbind level up strat isn't viable (well, even less viable than before), that's a minus compared to horsemen since it gives more xp to the enemy when killed.

Oh btw. for somereason, liminals have more scribed spell dmg when liminal compared to other alignments, when they should have the same since only the caster alignment should matter.

Edit: Replay of fire guardian cheese vs normal gameplay (orc is actually one of the only recruits to be a bit reasonable. otherwise I run out o gold faster)

P.S. apprentice level up at around 10-12 kills (level 1) which is about turn 10ish depending on battle. depending on feeds, they level up at arround the same time too.
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Elvish_Pillager »

Ugh, I need to fix replays. When I watch that replay, I can't see red's skills. And I can't open the menu to look at the spell log. (Saving and loading helped though.)

Apprentices definitely gain levels too fast – I didn't really give them full consideration when I designed the new XP system. For now, I'm thinking I'll just slap them with double the XP requirement.

When I was theorycrafting the price of Fire Guardians, I guess I didn't consider their flying-like movetype, which makes them more maneuverable (which helped Elder initiate the fight during daytime in this game). All 6+-AP summons are priced lower than their normal price, because they also cost AP. (I thought they were worth 10, so I priced them at 8.) Could Fire Guardians actually be worth as much as Orcish Grunts, meaning I should price them around 10? On this map, where they can just waltz down the awkward terrain in the middle, that might actually be believable. But it's just hard to believe that something as fragile as a walking corpse – and without serious scouting abilities like a bat – is worth that much.

Also, I think Rampage is massively overcosted right now. I'm planning a bunch of changes for spell mana costs in the next version. Once the dust settles on that, we can see whether this matchup still feels unfair.
It's all fun and games until someone loses a lawsuit. Oh, and by the way, sending me private messages won't work. :/ If you must contact me, there's an e-mail address listed on the website in my profile.
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Elder2 »

Elvish_Pillager wrote:Ugh, I need to fix replays. When I watch that replay, I can't see red's skills. And I can't open the menu to look at the spell log. (Saving and loading helped though.)

Apprentices definitely gain levels too fast – I didn't really give them full consideration when I designed the new XP system. For now, I'm thinking I'll just slap them with double the XP requirement.

When I was theorycrafting the price of Fire Guardians, I guess I didn't consider their flying-like movetype, which makes them more maneuverable (which helped Elder initiate the fight during daytime in this game). All 6+-AP summons are priced lower than their normal price, because they also cost AP. (I thought they were worth 10, so I priced them at 8.) Could Fire Guardians actually be worth as much as Orcish Grunts, meaning I should price them around 10? On this map, where they can just waltz down the awkward terrain in the middle, that might actually be believable. But it's just hard to believe that something as fragile as a walking corpse – and without serious scouting abilities like a bat – is worth that much.

Also, I think Rampage is massively overcosted right now. I'm planning a bunch of changes for spell mana costs in the next version. Once the dust settles on that, we can see whether this matchup still feels unfair.
Well I can tell you what I picked, I had magic blast, guardian, shield and dispell, these were all my spells, I had efficient, summoner and mentor, and dwarf alliance+ork alliance.

I think It would be hard to balance fire guardians by simply increasing their cost, I think in low numbers they do not work that well and they need to be spammable, on the other hand 6 g with efficient is half the price of a grunt, I think this is the best example of how efficient can break a summon, I don't think it really makes any other summon overpowered, but in case of fire guardian it is a 25% price reduction on top of fire guardian already being a bit too cheap.

Also, you said fire guardians are fragile, true but their strenght is their relatively high damage for their price.

I am not for any drastic price changes like +2g, maybe you should try +1g first.
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Computer_Player »

Undead with newbie.

I post this to show the weird thing how Compulsion had some mishaps: with Yeti statues blocking the path, Woses doing weird moves and then, not being able to target enemy wizard twice (but able to hit another unit on the second compulsion).

P.S. Mount nerf, nerfs Gryphon too. Unless ofcourse that's the point?

Generally I agree that upper tiers need some mana balancing.
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Elvish_Pillager »

Thanks! Compulsion hasn't been used much in the past because of its difficult conditions, so it's not surprising that there are a few bugs that haven't been caught yet. I've fixed these two. I think I'm going to release later today.

EDIT: Still workin' on the "weird moves".
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Elvish_Pillager »

The "weird path" bug is more complicated to fix. It happens because I'm using wesnoth's built-in [move_unit]. [move_unit], even with check_passability = false, refuses to accept to_x,to_y locations that have units in them, even though it will happily move a unit through another unit implicitly.

I've put fixing this on my TODO list. I'm going to make my own implementation of move_unit. It'll have to wait until a later release of EoHS, though. (And it's purely a UI issue – it only displays the wrong path, but doesn't have any actual effects like allowing the wrong ambushes or anything.)
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Elvish_Pillager »

EoHS 2.3.1 released! Get it on the Wesnoth 1.12 add-on server now!

– Reduced a bunch of mana costs, but removed Efficient.
I know I'm going to get some flak for this, but hear me out. Efficient has NEVER been a good feature for EoHS.
– – It creates confusion about spell prices. This includes both when people are talking to each other ("I thought it cost 10" "No, it costs 8"), and when a single person is planning out their turn.
– – It makes balance slightly harder. Chocobone and some other spells have been overcosted because I was worried about them being undercosted with Efficient. And it's hard to make Efficient be worth the same amount in different settings (e.g. campaigns versus PVP), or even different maps (depending how many villages there are).
– – Like any feature, it's an extra thing for new players to learn.
"But," you say, "those things are all true of Summoner and Enchanter as well!" And you're right. (Although -2 is still simpler than -20% with rounding.) But Summoner and Enchanter are cool enough to be worth it. Efficient is literally the most boring feature in all of EoHS. It might as well just be a talent that says "you get +X mana/turn." And its name doesn't even have a wizardly flavor to it.

Along with this change, I've reviewed the mana cost of all the spells. Some of them are getting slight reductions to make up for the removal of Efficient. Some others are getting large reductions because they were overcosted in the first place.

The following spells saw cost reductions: Chocobone 27->24, Sea Serpent 38->26, Water Serpent 24->23, Gryphon 28->25, Curse of Anxiety 2->1, Siphon Strength 7->5, Poison Ground 13->10, Zombie Swarm 28->24, Wraithform 9->4, Compulsion 9->4, Fireball 16->12, Regeneration 10->5, Metamorphosis 7->5, Dehydration 13->2, Rampage 22->13.

Other changes:

– Mostly fixed the EoHS dialog popping up at random.
– Simplified Change Terrain. It no longer has a turn limit, and the shapes aren't restricted by your Nature rank. However, it is now rank 2.
– Swapped the spell ranks of Zombie Swarm and Summon Chocobone. That way, Zombie Swarm can be more of a staple of necromancy, while Chocobones are more of a specialization.
– Pall of Fatigue no longer does a full simulated attack on every enemy, so it's much faster. Some people even had Wesnoth crashes when using it on huge groups of enemies – that should be all better now.
– The off-turn menu now defaults to selecting the unit you double-click on.
– Made the percentages given by Poison Ground simpler. This change makes the spell a tiny bit better.
– Group Teleport now costs a few mana again, for flavor reasons.
– Apprentices gained levels too fast under the new experience system. I'm not sure the best way to handle experience for apprentices. For now, I have simply doubled their experience requirements.
– The Battlemage bonus is no longer stored in scrolls. Just like Liminal, the bonus depends on who casts the spell, not who creates it.
– Non-wizards who use Wraithform now have reduced hitpoints, to make sure it isn't too overpowered with Scribe.
– Fixed several bugs with Compulsion.
– Fixed units being unable to level up twice in a row from e.g. Meteor Storm.
– The advancement choice dialog now displays correct images for advancements of enchanted units.
– Fixed not reducing Red Mages to Mages if they start at level 1 (...again)
– Fixed not initializing leaders who spawn after the first turn, such as in TSW Survival.
– Fixed advancement choices for AI sides being given to the host, instead of randomized.
– Fixed Zombie Mastery not capturing the villages that the zombies spawn on.
– Fixed a bunch of graphics bugs.
– Removed the "customize appearance" button for units that can't be customized.
– The map should no longer get not stuck being un-scrollable when there's an error during a spell.
It's all fun and games until someone loses a lawsuit. Oh, and by the way, sending me private messages won't work. :/ If you must contact me, there's an e-mail address listed on the website in my profile.
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Elder2
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Elder2 »

I have spotted a bug when casting zombie swarm, it causes zombie ai to stop attacking upon occuring. I have been using zombie swarm+battlemage bonus

https://scr.hu/2lyq/d010y

Also there is another bug with wraithform, when I end it my mage still looks like wraith/shadow, the appearance changes only when i change my appearance and set a new one
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Elvish_Pillager »

Thanks for the bug report! I have found it and fixed it. I will make a bug fix release soon.
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Computer_Player »

Fatal error when I try to open the EoHS dialog. Crashes wesnoth.

File: D:/boost_1_55_0/boost/variant/de.../visita...mpl.hpp
Line: 207

Expression: false
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