Has initiative been nerfed too much?

from Elemental Forums

OK I'm currently playing a game with Irane and I'm able to give her an initiative of 30 and she's going up against soldiers with an initiative of 16 so you'd think I'd get alot of extra turns as I pretty much have double their initiatve. Not so unfortunately.

But the game does something weird with the turns too. In the first turn the turn order indicates that Irane (me) will get 3 turns in a row so I take my first turn and immediately the turn order changes - I lose all my extra turns and instead all the units get one turn each. The only benefit I get from having a vastly superior initiative is that I get to go first each round. I know initiative was heavily nerfed to hose kiting but this feels like too much - taking 3 turns in a row was pretty strong but I think lightly armoured skirmishing units should be allowed to take 2 turns to an opponents 1 if their inititiative is high enough, otherwise where is the benefit to investing heavily in initiative?

Lightly armoured units should be much faster than heavily armoured units - they're trading surviverability for speed. Unfortunately I feel this game is drifting to whoever can equip the heaviest armour wins.

But even worse, initiative isn't even clear either - sometimes I get 2 turns to an opponents one (never 3 anymore) but it's never clear. How exactly do they work this out? All I know is that I see the turn order for Irane drop from 3 moves in a row to 1, which is very annoying - I might as well just slap on full platemail

What do the rest of you guys think?

3,321 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

I think it's silly to have someone so fast they attack 3 times for an opponent's single attack--IMO, that's impossible to justify.  Since early beta3, I've never bothered with armor above leather, because speed did what armor could not (and my 32 init bowmen were true god-slayers).  I find myself focused only on init, and that tells me armor is too underwhelming (we want everything to be tactical choices, not obvious ones, right?).  Human's tend to go from one extreme to the other, heh, rather than cautiously approaching a fine balance, so perhaps the readjustment is too severe.

I suggest making the mechanic where a slight init advantage gives you first move/strike, with a linear scale sliding smoothly toward a double init giving you twice the attacks (and triple really isn't feasible in most situations).  Before, it's seemed to work almost exponentially in favor of init (vs armor), and we certainly don't need it to swing to the other extreme.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Hey DGB, for the Lady Irane with Impulsive part, look at this: https://forums.elementalgame.com/430083

I honestly think heavy initiative should be changed abit, but more on that in an upcoming something (have to think it over)

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Elemental: Reforged
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

I personally think that low initiative units should also get an accuracy penalty with melee weapons (not ranged though). Minus 1 accuracy per point of difference in initiative would seem about right to me. Also a unit with 8 more initiative than an opponent should get an extra turn but it caps at 2 turns to 1. This deals with the kiting issue but allows initiative to retain some importance.

 

Also since I've mentioned dodge, I think that most large and mounted units should get a penalty to dodge in melee. Especially with mounts because an enemy soldier could just attack the mount and make it buck the rider.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

@Kondej

 

Thanks for the link, that explains alot and you're right about it being misleading - it literally drops from 3 turns in a row to just 1 - thats F'd up

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Does the Impusle give you a boost to initiative through the whole combat or is it just on the first turn / action, that you get the extra initiatve.

 

If you get a boost to initiative through the whole combat, it is probably a bug.

If you get a boost to initiative through on the first action only, it seems to work as intended. You will get +10 initiative on the first action/turn, and then the initiative will drop to 20 around equal to the soldiers initiative of 16.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

@Thimon2K

 

I have Irane's initiative at 30 without impulsive as it's very easy to get a high initiative with her