DsRaider

Join Date 11/2008

+70

[Beta5] Wildlands Bugs and Balancing

While Wildlands are a fun and interesting addition to the game they are currently one of the more imbalanced and buggy areas. Many are hard to take over but don't give noteworthy rewards. Some are also easy to conquer through abusing certain abilities or spells. In .982 Stardock will be adding more abilities to monsters to counteract kiting. Elemental Lords are also in need of more abilities. I would like to see Elemental Lord fights be more like RPG bosses instead of the current grinds. This would be very possible by simply giving them more interesting abilities. Also all elemental Lords are too vulnerable to magic. They need higher resistance. The easiest way to kill them is to stack debuffs especially slow on them. Also since so many of them are so slow they really should be able to cast most spells without casting times.

The Shroud:

Deorcynsse is a horrible city. As the reward for a wildland it should be noteworthy and awesome, try 4/4/3. It is also too easy to conquer. I have played multiple games where the AI takes it because all they need to kill is Darklings. This also unleashes the Hoarder spider, which is very annoying. Try adding some escaped juggernauts and a special powerful Darkling shaman to the city. Give him despair, summon demon, and a whole bunch of health.

The Asog:

Morian is perhaps the only Elemental Lord without a cast-able ability. Maybe give him a self-heal with a casting time, and imprison. Also when restored the Asog keeps the swamp trees which don't boost production. This makes the territory useless for cities. Morian is also tough enough to kill that the land you gain should be noteworthy even lategame. Try adding more resources like metal.

The Lombard Desert:

May I suggest that the desert shouldn't be made fertile upon conquest. From a lore perspective it makes no sense, and it just leads to everything looking the same late game. Instead their should simply be several awesome resources there for outposts. The Library should be a location you can actually claim and build an improvement on for long term gains, not a puny one time benefit. Torax himself is very vulnerable to slow. Also titan's breath doesn't work for him very well because of the casting time, he is so slow it is easy to counter or even ignore. Maybe give him a custom version without the casting time.

The Bhindami Fissure:

Abeix is easy to kill if you just hang outside his melee range and bombard him with ranged attacks and spells. To fix this his ranged attack needs to be buffed quite a bit. Also the ability to teleport by going down and rising up somewhere else would help, or even much higher movement. He takes forever to move around his area. An earthquake like ability that hurts everyone on the map would work to.

The Burning Land:

I haven't tested this in the latest build but isn't Delin still not showing up in tactical battles. Feedback from other players would be appreciated.

World's End:

Vetrar is currently all right. However a mass slow ability might be cool, also a frost bolt ability so that he has some ranged firepower that can't be so easily countered.

Curgen's Tomb:

To be updated.

Pits of Namtur:

To be updated.

Ruins of the Impurium:

To be updated.

If you have come upon one of these Wildlands feel free to comment.

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The Shroud

With regards to The Shroud and Deorcynsse, Deorcynsse is supposed to be a city of Darklings (assuming I understood the description correctly). Why not have it be a level 5 city when you conquer it, filled with some unique buildings that you can't get any other way? You could still have the population be very low after conquest, but the unique appearance of Deorcynsse would not disappear and the tile yields wouldn't matter as much, as you'd be conquering the city for the unique improvements rather than to have "just another city," which is the way that Deorcynsse currently feels. Perhaps conquering Deorcynsse could also allow you to design and recruit Darkling units (but only recruit at Deorcynsse), or allow you to recruit all five standard Darkling units (Darklings, Darkling Warriors, Darkling Riders, Darkling Lurkers, and Darkling Shamans, unless I missed some).

The Lombard Desert

Bearing in mind that I came across this only in the 0.98 build, not 0.981, I think that it is too easy to get the knowledge bonus out of this Wildlands, as all you had to do at the time was run a hero in, run around the more difficult armies while slaughtering the weak ones, then hit the five libraries. I never fought Torax because I didn't think there was a point - the place was a desert and I wasn't impressed by the wildlings, so why should I want to gain control of a bunch of wildling villages? Granted, they'll give me free meatshields, but they also significantly slow my army in strategic movement, and I would rather have better garrison troops in my cities than a bunch of Wildlings. Maybe you shouldn't be able to claim the bonus from the largest library without fighting Torax. I also like the idea of leaving the area as a desert filled with good resources that you would need outposts to claim.

Pits of Namtur

I've come across this a couple of times. It seems like all it is is a bunch of treasure sites which have a (large) chance of having relatively strong enemies spawn when you access them. It isn't that hard to clear.

Ruins of the Imperium

I can't say much about this, aside from that the only time I ever came across it you couldn't clear it because the AI had built a city close enough that the city-site within the ruins was unusable.

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The Shroud needs an overhaul. It hasn't been updated with the new city mechanics. I would guess we will get that soon. I hope the city is at least level 4 or has some really great tile yields to make it worth going after. And the city garrison needs to be something really hard to kill. Maybe they are protected by a Fell Dragon?

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DsRaider

Join Date 11/2008

+70

Quoting seanw3,

reply 2

Maybe not that tough. I like that it is a comparably easy wildlands, however it is too easy now.

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DsRaider

Join Date 11/2008

+70

Bump. There are still some serious issue with Wildlands that need addressed, like how the swamp trees in the Asog stay after you defeat it.

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One more thing that needs some balance is the aftermath. Once we win, what kind of land should we be settling on? Most of these give us several 3/3/0 spots because we just get fertile land. So we end up with 3 small towns and whatever other bonus. I would like the areas to only afford us one city. I would like the small space that is fertile to have at least a 5/3/2. I want to start a powerful city that can change the game for my faction. Just one powerful city that is given late in the game can be really very exciting. It would just take a few keenly placed resources and a decrease in the restoration radius to perfect this mechanic.

For The Shroud, that city needs to have epic strength and I need to receive a powerful city for winning. I want some special trained units or extra production or something to make this city tower over others. It would be cool for it to have a large essence amount so personify the magic of the city. Maybe also make it immune to negative enchantments.

There are of course exceptions to my comments. The point is that before release we have to get these things up to par with the rest of the game. Given how wonderful the last few updates have been, I don't doubt that this will happen.

P.S. Bump!

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I agree with seanw3, and would go even further: upon finishing, a new city is automatically founded with 5/3/2 or something and the heart is placed there. (Maybe that's what you said?) Then have the heart actually do something useful, multiple cool effects, etc. Something like "casts flame wave at the beginning of combat" or "+4 fire attack to all trained units". Then it would be properly awesome.

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DsRaider

Join Date 11/2008

+70

Whenever I clear a Willdlands late game I usually have 5-7 cities and don't really want 3 more 3/3/0 cities. Mostly the AI just expands into them unless I am insightful enough to bring a bunch of pioneers behind my army. I would enjoy it more if some wildlands like the desert and swamp stuck around so I could keep adventuring. They are far more interesting as wildlands then normal land.

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Quoting joeball123,

reply 1

Ruins of the Imperium

I can't say much about this, aside from that the only time I ever came across it you couldn't clear it because the AI had built a city close enough that the city-site within the ruins was unusable.

Either this was the case in my game also or there simply was not a single tile in that wildlands to build a city on.

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Quoting pomalley,

reply 7

I just defeated my first wildlands (it was all burning, Delin the Pyre of Something-or-other), and all I got was this lousy 10% growth bonus in one city (and 50% fire resistance for defenders, which is of questionable usefulness). I actually said, out loud, to myself, "You have got to be kidding me." It was worth it because the hero got about 5 levels or so, but still.

I agree with seanw3, and would go even further: upon finishing, a new city is automatically founded with 5/3/2 or something and the heart is placed there. (Maybe that's what you said?) Then have the heart actually do something useful, multiple cool effects, etc. Something like "casts flame wave at the beginning of combat" or "+4 fire attack to all trained units". Then it would be properly awesome.

I agree with you guys, clearing a wildlands is beyond "epic" and the rewads are kind of "weak"

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I personally would like it if defeating an elemental lord gave you the ability to train (or spawn like the recruitable monsters) shrills and elementals of that type in the city where you set up the trophy.

Something like:

City Level Bonus Creature

1 Shrill

2 The snake-like elementals for fire (Ignys) and earth (ophidians), whatever is equivalent for water, air, and the last one

3 Elemental

4 Shrill Lord

5 Elemental Lord

Speaking of which, who is the fifth elemental lord and what is his element? Abeix for Earth, somebody with a T (Toranth? Torath?) for Air, Delin for Fire (I think, though his description indicates he might not be), Vetrar for water, and ??? (is it Morian?) for ?Life and Death.

Also, units: we have shrills and elementals for the classical magic elements of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, and we have the Ignys and Ophidian that are minor elemental-like creatures for Fire and Earth, but I can't think of anything but demons that might be elementals for the fifth element, nor am I aware of equivalents to Ignys and Ophidians for Water and Air. Crag Spawn are essentially equivalent to Ophidians, but both seem associated with Earth to me, and I can't think of other monsters that could fit in a similar place for Air and Water.

Taking Deorcynsse should at least give you a unique city, not one that just ends up looking the same as any other as soon as you get the city to go up a level. Making it high level (and especially giving it unique improvements, and/or benefits for holding it) would go a long way in that direction.

I would also support having the wildlands that give fertile land after being cleared produce less of it but concentrate the bonus into one really great site for a city (similar to how I think the Ruins of the Imperium is supposed to work), and having certain wildlands (like the Lombard Desert, and maybe the Pits of Namtur) not spawn fertile tiles upon being cleared but rather have lots of resource tiles or very good resource tiles that you can claim with outposts after clearing the wildland.

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I have been playing this game for a long time and have only seen Wildlands 4 times and I could do nothing with them. So pretty much I assume they were bugged and killed all the players.

I think it was the same wildlands because I could not get pass the gate. Could not figure out how to open it. Have no idea which wildland it was.

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One of the oddest things I've noticed in the wildlands is that once conquered, the movement for all terrain changes to 1. At least it did the last time I conquered an area. It was nice, but it felt wrong to run over rivers and swamps like the were not there.

I do like your idea of some of the areas remaining unsettleable, kind of creates a potential outpost battle ground.

They could also put some of the world wonder structures out in the wildlands to be found and used via-outpost.

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