[Praise/Suggestion] Units doing less damage when wounded is a great mechanic

Can heroes be the same way?

from Elemental Forums

I really like how units with multiple people do less damage after they get wounded.  It makes the combat much more interesting.  Often, you have to decide whether to kill off a damaged unit, or hurt a stronger one.  I usually go for hitting the stronger unit.  That way they are less likely to one-shot kill somebody on my side.   

With this great mechanic, the tactics aren't necessarily about focus-firing to eliminate one unit at a time.  The side effect of this is that units last longer in combat.  Which in turn makes each combat more interesting and dynamic.

Another advantage of this is that since it's not the optimal strategy to eliminate one unit at  a time, the AI is not obligated to follow that strategy.  Which means there should be less fatalities on the winning side, but you still get pretty beat up and need to go rest.

My only suggestion would be to apply this to heroes as well.   After they get hit, they should get a wounded status.  After that, maybe they get reductions in damage, initiative and/or mana cost.  Perhaps the reductions could be based on how wounded they are.  Maybe at 25% they get a seriously wounded status, for example.

Also, this goes well with the abilities that provide extra powers when a unit is wounded.  That will give a twist, since for those units once you start hitting them, you need to finish the job.

Anyway, I think battles would be more fun if you had to consider wounding everyone prior to killing people off.  

 

Is anyone else enjoying this aspect?

4,096 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top


I agree that having every unit, including champions, lose striking power as they get hurt themselves increases the potential strategic aspect of the tatcical battles, which many people believe needs addressing - while there are other suggestions that have been made to address this issue, this seems like an easy change that will move things in that direction regardless of what other decisions are made.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top


I am not a fan of this. Singular units should be unique in that they do not lose power. A dragon does not need to become less powerful as it's hitpoints decrease. Plus how do you determine the rate of lost strength and at what point does the unit no longer benefit from expending mana. For that matter.. how do you address buffs/debuffs that would be difficult, if not impossible to adjust based on health (loss).

The absolute most I would be willing to accept from this is a 'wounded' debuff that decreases moves, dodge and accuracy by some small ammount (or percentage), potentially negatable by a trait. That way dragons and champions can still retain their sense of mystique and power.

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

First, we need to a way to tell how much enemies might hit our units for. Once that's in place, wounding individual units seems like a reasonable measure. It could create opportunities for cheese, but there's already something like this now where units less than 50% HP increase their defense and/or attack. Why not say something like less than 10% HPs reduce attack by 50% or something? Worth considering. Even if it wasn't applied broadly to all individual units, it might be worth giving that attribute to certain monsters/heroes.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

no i dont like, the difference between multi units and a single big unit is just that, dmg on first reduce the outcome while on second  it doesnt

 

its also a way to make dragons and big things much more dangerous and fearable

cause some aoe or few dmg on them wont change much

 

i like it this way tbh

 

 

only reason i could consider something just for champions is cause they are actually op but that could change so lets just wait  imo

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Lord, reply 3
First, we need to a way to tell how much enemies might hit our units for.
End of Lord's quote

I think if you mouse over an enemy unit it displays its attack value.  I don't know how accurate it is in determining damage, but I use it to get a sense of which units are the heavy hitters.

 

 

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting CdrRogdan, reply 2
I am not a fan of this. Singular units should be unique in that they do not lose power. A dragon does not need to become less powerful as it's hitpoints decrease
End of CdrRogdan's quote

I think most things become less effective when they start to get broken.  That should be the default behavior.  There are some creatures, such as beserkers and perhaps dragons that are exceptions.  They have some sort of blood rage that makes them nasty before they go down.  They can have those abilities, but it shouldn't be the default.

In terms of game play, I think its better because you need to make harder decisions.  Do you focus fire, or do you spread it out.  Currently in this game, (and most games), focus fire is the optimal strategy.  It's to the point of being a no brainer.  So, imagine now that you are fighting two dragons.    Which is going to be more fun:

When the the optimal strategy is to:

1. to concentrate all your attacks until one dies, and then work on the next

2. have to make decisions on which to attack based on trade offs between eliminating a threat or reducing another one.

Based on my criteria (harder decision equals more fun), then option 2 is more intriguing.