Fallen Enchantress 0.982 Changelog

None of the bugs I reported on the list ;(

Can we also get a Adventurer's Boon nerf. At +10 hp it's a no brainer, and is counteracting the champion hp nerf.

Also ya please fix the World Difficulty Tooltip! This has been broken for so long. I want to know what World Difficulty actually does....

must have been low priority ones

Dude, it was already nerfed.  It was 15 before.  It's starting to become not worth it.

Don't give up.  Keep reporting bugs and UI issues!

As compared to what? +10 Spell resistance, or +1 initiative?  It's still much better then every other early game trait.

Also are Bottled Fire supposed to cost mana?

Agreed. +10 is right about where it should be.

+10Hp, but with a level 10 prereq is fine. At level 2 we are just pissing all over the random trait function.

Derek:

For balance there is a strong need to lower the cost/time to build regular units.    In beta 5 they take too long to build forcing us to rely even more on the hero units.    It also takes up very long periods of time in the build que that is needed for buildings, etc.

The game is coming along well.    This would be a good improvement to game balance and game pace.

Is there a reason that the whole "can't view the city on level up" thing is still around?  That's probably the biggest thing for gameplay for me right now.  That, and not being able to give normal units the ability to cast a spell (like heal, so no priests).

@Derek,

are you going to merge the two progression systems for sovereigns/champions (i.e. the rpg of experience and equipment farming) and armies (i.e. the 4x with researching and building up an empire/kingdom)? Currently both gameplay aspects are not linked together (i never had to research anything to give my champions good items. i took everything i needed from the monsters) and as long as they stay separated you will end in an perpetual balancing cycle of champions vs. armies. There are many possible ways to do this, so i won't bother you with a host of suggestions, but the main aspect should be that champions and sovereigns should never gain access to much more powerful items than your armies could. For example instead of giving the player a game ending sword when defeating the lord of winter he just gains his essence which can be forged into that sword when you have the necessary research done.

There is also one underlying AI issue: I believe the AI will never be as good as the player in leveling up powerful champions/sovereigns therefore if the whole game is tilted towards champions/sovereigns the ai will always be behind. The ai for the 4x aspect might be good, but it can never have the knowledge of an experienced player that knows in what order to farm the map clear of monsters and what traits to choose. 

I also want to point out that a lot of recent concerns of yours like kiting with tactical combat regeneration or the selling prices of items are of minor or no concern for the current state of the game imho. The main issue is that once your heroes have progressed a little and you know what monsters you can take on, the champions/sovereigns reach endgame while your armies are in the midgame. In my current 0.81 game i had a lvl 30+ sovereign with the blade of winter (now he is lvl 40+) and my research was just finishing juggernauts, i.e. my sovereign was an all powerful demigod (400+ hitpoints, dealing 200+ critical with a ~50% critical hit chance) whereas my troops had just reached midgame.

some comments on the changes: 

these spells are barely worth their mana cost (especially in the early game) yet you reduce their effects? Why not add some side effects like +1/-1 tactical movement speed for haste/slow?

i just want to post out that a strategy relying on sovereigns/champions is much more successful against those monsters yet you give them abilities that makes it even harder for armies to deal with them? especially more moves on Silt Skath and Umberdroths! Those thing are at your archers the moment the battle begins (especially since you can not choose the initial army setup, i.e. how is in the first line).

very good change, because high armor means that regular units are worthless (because they have a lot of low damage attacks, whereas sovereigns/champions have just single powerful attack) 

While I agree that the ability to customize unit placement on tactical maps would be nice, until then may I suggest using an army that contains more than just ranged units?

Absolutely not true.  These spells, even with these changes, are borderline overpowered.  1 +1/shard initiative change is easily worth 10-20 mana early game, it's that good.  You need to remember that the base initiative is 20, so adjusting 1 point in any direction is a 5% shift in balance, which is pretty hefty.

And adding tactical movement to haste would be gamebreaking. 

If anything, I would suggest adding a dodge bonus to haste, and a dodge penalty to slow.

Word.

I liking the progress on the changes thus far.

I would like some word about the floating waterfalls during map generation. If that is on the bug list or you are not going to fix this problem before release. Just would like some word on the matter.

I agree with a lot of the balance changes. Cannot complain about the argument of champions vs amies when my champions as it is are having trouble getting out of town in the early game. Haste and slow made it still doable to solo with champions and now are rightfully nerfed (not going to argue whether the nerf is enough). 

Can we sort of scale down the movement of monsters? Seems like there are a lot of random monster movements, and its scary how early in the game I can get one of my towns hit by a grown ogre or a slag. 

initiative just gives you more moves, not more attack or defense. you need quite a big bonus to initiative to get some additional attacks, although both spells are currently bugged, if the thread about them is correct (the effects get applied retroactively, so if you cast slow some turns later in the combat the affected unit can not move for one or two turns.). i don't know how big the scaling factor with he air shard plays into this however, i usually never get that many, but i can see your point if there are too many those spells can be powerful. It is just in comparison with other early spells (like curse, blindness, fire dart, ...) that i find these two a bit lacking.

i saw the suggestion earlier and i love it. i don't build units, but just for the sake of argument, if i would those fast monsters would make the moving phase obsolete and remove the little there is about tactical combat. trolls already have a movement of 3, i.e. you will get two shots off (if you move back and then shoot) and then they are in melee range.

Derek - please find below my buglist / wishlist for 0.981, hoping that some of the items in the list will make it in 0.982:

[bugs / fixes]

- treetops sometimes turn white (instead of green or purple) after a battle. Zooming in and out fixes this, but it gets really annoying...

- floating waterfalls at the end of rivers when they end on land (other people and myself have reported on this ad nauseam)

- return piers, logging camps etc. to their previous state where we can build them even if the city reaches the river/forest through snaking

[balance issues]

- nerf the dark sorcerer's armor and/or despair attack

- nerf the master scouts ability so it is not such a clear advantage for exploring and settling

- create "swarming" or "flanking" ability to give groups an edge over heroes and single units

- give governors an experience gain for staying in cities (linked to turns, city growth or buildings)

[UI/Tweaks]

- give us a go-there button for resources that are destroyed by the enemy (MUST HAVE)

- provide an "open/close borders" option in diplomacy independent from NA treaties

- give us a "teleport item" spell in order to move items from hero to hero

- alternatively, provide an "item vault" building in cities where we can store and pick up items

- allow outposts to train defenders just like cities

- provide an "auto-resolve battle without spells" and make the normal auto-resolve use spells

- give us an "auto-moving" indicator in the empire tree for units that are pathing (a yellow border?)

- give us the ability to attack heroes if we don't want to recruit them or leave them for the enemy - it is silly to recruit them just so we can disband them...

[content] (note: this last part can all come from mods so it's not as high priority for release)

- more items : we can never have enough!

- more summins spells

- more high-level monster bosses with high-level item rewards

This list is quite definitive, and (again imho) not hard to implement either before release or during the first expansion If most of the above are addressed at some point before release, I personally will give this game a full 100% endorsement and keep it in my hard drive for decades to come !!!

I think it is great that you start to reduce the shard scaling, but + 3 or - 3 is too low, because all spells should be useful without shards. Reducing the base effect of the spells removes the "go big or go home" feeling and is in my opinion a knee-jerk reaction to the kiting problem. It would be better to:

- Haste: + 5 initiative and + 10 dodge (+ 3 per air shard)

- Slow: - 5 initiative and - 10 dodge (+ 3 per water shard)

- Evade: The movement of the unit can not be reduced by the enemies zone of control in tactical combat

- Tireless March: Remove the movement bonus and replace it with the ability to move through difficult terrain

The increased movement is a very good idea, but it reduces the power of ranged attacks. The initiative penalty of ranged weapons should be reduced, because with the higher monster movement and the higher movement of horses it is much easier to close the gap between the archer and the melee unit.

Keep on posting bugs guys. They normally add a few during the week before release on thursday. And the rest go into the que. I am guessing we are at least 4 patches from release.

Yea, this log is only showing 24 hours worth of fixes. By next week it should be something scary.

Indeed if you grab this right away it is usually a over 50% boost to the overall strength of a champion.

for now all balance changes seems good to me

Please fix the issue with Burning Blade. The AI players are able to stack it. Mentioned in these two posts:

https://forums.elementalgame.com/432447

https://forums.elementalgame.com/432244