[Observations]

from Elemental Forums

Alright some observations I have made in the past few weeks as I have taken a small step back from my overly ambitious armor mod.

1# Healing is far to weak in general.  Unless you get lucky you can heal very effectively more than one person at a time if that person is taking a lot of damage.  This is a problem with other spells but healing it is a direct problem if you want a healer unit.  Basically the spells just fail to scale.

2# Boss damage is far too low.  What I mean by bosses I mean Dragons/Elemental Lords/Quest Bosses/Dungeon Bosses.  These fights are supposed to be epic.  These units are supposed to be almost gods, shrink/blind should NEVER work on them.

3# Early on end bosses have far too few hp.  At turn 100 with a lucky set of archers from a quest I almost killed a whole wildlands with just my sov and another champ.  I would have finished it but torrax attacked me before I could save up a little more mana.  While their hp looks epic at turn 1 by the time you hit turn 200-300 they look only a little tough if you have any kind of high damage trained units.

4# Trained units damage is exponentially out of control at the end of game.  You can literally have a group of 7 Fully armored Kinghts running around with 30 Damage swords with buffs from training and spells hitting around damage 50.  While a single unit at damage 50 is tough a group of 7 means you get seven chances to hit at that point compared to one.

5# Items get too many discounts making the increased cost of production null and void by end game.  Those damage 30 swords previously mentioned cost next to nothing in training cost if you have a weaponsmith and the underforge at a level 5 fortress city.  This marginalizes your champions/heroes.

Recommendations

1# Scale the spells with level.  For each tier set a maximum amount they can scale.  So for tier 1 spells they increase every 5 levels.  Also have spell +% to damage stack onto healing effect spells.  Currently they do not.

2# I would recommend making all "Boss" units effectively magic immune except by someone while has a LOT of points into spell mastery and by a lot I mean like 150+ points.  While they can still take damage from elemental damage this removes exploitive crippling spells from removing the true challenge these units are supposed to be.

3# I would recommend doubling or tripling their hp totals to make the fights hard.  I know that when two dragons are fought together the fight is insane but a single dragon can be beaten fairly easy.  Make it that dragons have dragonlings with them since after all they are guarding a dragon roost, make them have young dragons with them to fight.

4# This will likely get me yelled at, lower across the board all trained units accessible damage weapons.  It is a simple numbers game when trained units have access to the same gear a sov/champ gets.  They have more strikes even if slightly weaker because of lack of traits.

5#  This will likely also get me yelled at, lower across the board all discount abilities for trained units.  If you want to deck out a trained unit in the final end game gear that's available to them that's great, but it should not take just as long to train them as spear weilding leather wearing units when you apply their armor/weapon/training discounts from improvements.

 

My 2 Copper

21,523 views 30 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

My problem with the shrink/blind thing is this.  If those spells don't work on powerful creatures, then why have the spells at all?  Why waste the mana, why even get the ability?  Maybe they shouldn't work as well, but to eliminate them from working on boss level monsters makes magic less effective and worthwhile in a game where it should be extremely powerful.  It also lessens the tactical/strategic element of the game.  

 

As for trained weapon damage.  The system they have is flawed, they have improved and improved upon it, but having grouped units and single units using the same equipment is difficult to balance.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Actually the single unit damage vs champion/sov damage gear is fairly easy to fix, but time consuming.  It literally requires two sets of gear to be made for each piece of trainable gear.  The question is what should the difference in stats be for single unit Sov/Champ/Hench and regular trained units gear.  This affects almost everything.

As far as the magic goes for those spells, I am not really for removing them so much as making it so that these spells are useless casting unless you are specialized in getting past a units magic resistance such as a Path of the Mage specialization.  Why not even add on the the different path specializations a specific bonus that grows with level.  Mage +1 Spell Mastery per levels above what they already get and remove that as an auxiliary trait, defender auto get the +1 hp per level, and so on and so on.  This makes taking each specialization more meaningful for your choice beyond just having access to specific traits.  

Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top


Alright some observations I have made in the past few weeks as I have taken a small step back from my overly ambitious armor mod.


1# Healing is far to weak in general.  Unless you get lucky you can heal very effectively more than one person at a time if that person is taking a lot of damage.  This is a problem with other spells but healing it is a direct problem if you want a healer unit.  Basically the spells just fail to scale.

End of quote

Say that again when you have units with loads of armor. Healing is hard to balance, and you can just stack initiative instead of letting them scale.


2# Boss damage is far too low.  What I mean by bosses I mean Dragons/Elemental Lords/Quest Bosses/Dungeon Bosses.  These fights are supposed to be epic.  These units are supposed to be almost gods, shrink/blind should NEVER work on them.

End of quote

Overpower. Spell resist. Dragons resist quite often when I try to blind them, UNLESS I've stacked spell mastery. Working as intended.


3# Early on end bosses have far too few hp.  At turn 100 with a lucky set of archers from a quest I almost killed a whole wildlands with just my sov and another champ.  I would have finished it but torrax attacked me before I could save up a little more mana.  While their hp looks epic at turn 1 by the time you hit turn 200-300 they look only a little tough if you have any kind of high damage trained units.

End of quote
 

What reward are you getting? Do a risk vs reward calculation, and wildlands is pretty fair.


4# Trained units damage is exponentially out of control at the end of game.  You can literally have a group of 7 Fully armored Kinghts running around with 30 Damage swords with buffs from training and spells hitting around damage 50.  While a single unit at damage 50 is tough a group of 7 means you get seven chances to hit at that point compared to one.

End of quote
 

Up your difficulty. I fight 220+ armor stacks at insane, somewhat lower at ridicilous. Working as intended. 


5# Items get too many discounts making the increased cost of production null and void by end game.  Those damage 30 swords previously mentioned cost next to nothing in training cost if you have a weaponsmith and the underforge at a level 5 fortress city.  This marginalizes your champions/heroes.
End of quote
 

Crystal is where it's at. The real powerful units use loads of crystal. I lack it all the time in my games. Again, up your difficulty if it feels too easy.


Recommendations

1# Scale the spells with level.  For each tier set a maximum amount they can scale.  So for tier 1 spells they increase every 5 levels.  Also have spell +% to damage stack onto healing effect spells.  Currently they do not.

2# I would recommend making all "Boss" units effectively magic immune except by someone while has a LOT of points into spell mastery and by a lot I mean like 150+ points.  While they can still take damage from elemental damage this removes exploitive crippling spells from removing the true challenge these units are supposed to be.

3# I would recommend doubling or tripling their hp totals to make the fights hard.  I know that when two dragons are fought together the fight is insane but a single dragon can be beaten fairly easy.  Make it that dragons have dragonlings with them since after all they are guarding a dragon roost, make them have young dragons with them to fight.

4# This will likely get me yelled at, lower across the board all trained units accessible damage weapons.  It is a simple numbers game when trained units have access to the same gear a sov/champ gets.  They have more strikes even if slightly weaker because of lack of traits.

5#  This will likely also get me yelled at, lower across the board all discount abilities for trained units.  If you want to deck out a trained unit in the final end game gear that's available to them that's great, but it should not take just as long to train them as spear weilding leather wearing units when you apply their armor/weapon/training discounts from improvements.

 

My 2 Copper
End of quote
 

All your issues can be solved with: Upping your difficulty. ;) Balancing stuff even is impossible.

To fight hard against you, the AI needs "cheating" bonuses in a game like this. Nothing is wrong with the game unless it get's too easy at the "extremes" (easy and very hard AI's) 

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

What I have been playing at is Hard mode almost exclusively which does give a slight advantage to the AI.  Keep in mind though ALL of my observations have nothing to do with the AI though and have everything to do with trained units vs non trained vs NPC's.  NPC's get spells that scale with levels why not regular spells?  I am not talking huge bonuses I am just referring to small effects.  Heck I would even be happy if +% to damage worked on heals.  The life tree seems like the odd ball out.  There are some amazing abilities but the core of the life tree is suposed to be the ability to heal which without any shards is amazingly lackluster.

Gear is something that needs to be addressed for the game to stay challenging at any level.  To make your Sov/Champ relevant vs a stack of 7 units that can wield the same gear seems like a one sided battle.

Overpower does help for damage wise but when you have a single Champ that can stand toe to toe with Torrak at level 10 wearing leather and rusty plate there is a problem.  And yes this was at hard difficulty with the three top AI's all at war with me.  While I may have initially lost my cities in that game with my heroes so highly leveled compared to the rest of the AI's I could have easily steamrolled most of their cities at that point of the game.

The AI stuff is being addressed with 1.3 this is deeper stuff that needs to be balanced for the long term sake of the game.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting halmal242, reply 2
Actually the single unit damage vs champion/sov damage gear is fairly easy to fix, but time consuming.  It literally requires two sets of gear to be made for each piece of trainable gear.  The question is what should the difference in stats be for single unit Sov/Champ/Hench and regular trained units gear.  This affects almost everything.

As far as the magic goes for those spells, I am not really for removing them so much as making it so that these spells are useless casting unless you are specialized in getting past a units magic resistance such as a Path of the Mage specialization.  Why not even add on the the different path specializations a specific bonus that grows with level.  Mage +1 Spell Mastery per levels above what they already get and remove that as an auxiliary trait, defender auto get the +1 hp per level, and so on and so on.  This makes taking each specialization more meaningful for your choice beyond just having access to specific traits.  
End of halmal242's quote

 

I agree with you.  To blind a boss level creature, I should be a pretty darn powerful mage, not just a guy wit the spell. I see your point.  And yes, having a different set of weapons for the soldiers and heroes would work, but time consuming to do.  Also, like I have said a billion times, remove the grouped unit mechanic entirely so a group of soldiers and a hero have the same combat mechanics.  

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

I think the same would be difficult but yes it should be pretty close.  I see the point of having the groups versus single unit, do one big hit or LOTS of little hits.  The problem comes with group units scaling damage.  So you would have to have single unit weapons (Special weapons for heroes) that are 7 times more powerful than trained units weapons.  Also though remember that because of the system being used with attack and armor calculations that if you made a weapon 1/7th as powerful it would do negligible damage versus a highly armored creature/unit.  So you would have to have weapons scale on a tier scale for each type. 

Tier 1 would be 1/3 the total power meaning if you top weapon did 10 damage vs a 10 armor creature, would give you a damage calcs of

Max Damage = (10*10) / (10+10) = 5

Min Damage  = (10*10) /2*(10+10) = 2.5

So for trained units the highest damage for a starting 3 unit group would be around 5 or so.

5/3 = 1.666

(X*X)/(X+10) = 1.66 

X^2 - 1.66X -16.66 = 0

X = 4.995 or around 5.

 

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting halmal242, reply 5
Overpower does help for damage wise but when you have a single Champ that can stand toe to toe with Torrak at level 10 wearing leather and rusty plate there is a problem.
End of halmal242's quote

Eh? You got lucky with RNG then. Blind could need a small nerf (duration most likely, like curse), but leather and rusty +lvl 10 hasn't been enough when I do him. (did you have brilliance on sovereign while doing him?)

What I have been playing at is Hard mode almost exclusively which does give a slight advantage to the AI.  Keep in mind though ALL of my observations have nothing to do with the AI though and have everything to do with trained units vs non trained vs NPC's.  NPC's get spells that scale with levels why not regular spells?  I am not talking huge bonuses I am just referring to small effects.  Heck I would even be happy if +% to damage worked on heals.  The life tree seems like the odd ball out.  There are some amazing abilities but the core of the life tree is suposed to be the ability to heal which without any shards is amazingly lackluster.
End of quote

Crusade ftw. Company lightning hammers, and lots of mana, enjoy ;) Death ward is pretty good as well, though somewhat annoying since it doesn't refresh after death. (but still leechs mana) Growth/shrink makes or break it too. Growth on your fancy archers/mages is huge.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

I had a Mage Sov with Life 3 and Earth 3 and a few pieces of leather on him.  I also had a Champ with 3 pieces of rusty plate and two pieces of leather and a rusty shield.  I had the 3 archers from the quest for a unit.  From there I basically cleared the whole wildlands by my tank tanking and my sov healing while the archer did damage.  The only reason I did not beat Torrak was that I ran out of mana because he got to me while I was low on mana I had him to 1/4th health when I ran out of mana.  I did this by simply growthing all my units and shrinking torrak nothing else.  No magic was used except heal, shrink, and growth.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

I think the solution is rather easy and wouldn't require a whole lot of work at all.

Just use a multiplier to the Heros stats once you research the Army-size-Techs so the Hero get's something off them too.

The multiplier could be as simple as Armysize/Base-Army-Size.

So when Armysize is 3, it's 3/3=1

Armysize 4: 4/3 = 1.333

...

Armysize 7: 7/3 = 2.333

This way your Souvereigns and Champions would not lose their special value compared to normal buildable units.

Monsters could also use the same scaling depending on what tech-level they are supposed to be challenged.

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

I wholeheartedly agree that spell scaling needs work.  The system needs something more than shards for scaling.  Something as simple as adding X% per level or spell mastery would go far.

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Lord, reply 1
My problem with the shrink/blind thing is this.  If those spells don't work on powerful creatures, then why have the spells at all?  Why waste the mana, why even get the ability?  Maybe they shouldn't work as well, but to eliminate them from working on boss level monsters makes magic less effective and worthwhile in a game where it should be extremely powerful.  It also lessens the tactical/strategic element of the game.  

 

As for trained weapon damage.  The system they have is flawed, they have improved and improved upon it, but having grouped units and single units using the same equipment is difficult to balance.
End of Lord's quote

Don't you think Gandalf would have loved to have been able to "shrink/blind" that Balrog? lol He didn't because it's just not realistic magical fantasy to allow godlike creatures to be downgraded so much to the point a human could just squash them like a bug. Gandalf had to give up his Grey life to defeat that thing and that's the way it should be in this game. Only movement spells should work like "You Shall Not Pass" hahaha

I'm all for what the OP has recommended. I think things need to be MUCH HARDER myself. Most especially against godlike units. Of course I do agree in "counters" for them but they should come at a HUGE COST in resourses and mana not some jr spells like blind and shrink. There was one game I played can't recall the name right now but spells had tier ranks and didn't work on creatures above the tier rank +4 higher and of course godlike creatures had the highest ranks so things like sleep, shrink and blind never worked on them. There were spells of course that did but at a COST like I said should be included in fighting boss mobs or godlike creatures.

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting willie, reply 12
realistic magical fantasy
End of willie's quote

Lol.

Do you see what you are typing mate? ;)

 

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top

A game in which people are rulers of nations due to their skill in magic, should mean that magic is powerful enough to effect all things.  So, if I create a magic focused Sov, in a game about magic wielding Sovs, I should be weaker and unable to defeat powerful creatures without having to also be a great warrior?  I've always hated that in games.  My Sov should be able to gain power enough to destroy any other creature in the world. This is a game where civilization exist through my will and the world is reborn through my power.  But I can't fucking blind a dragon with a spell?  

Reply #14 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting willie, reply 12
Don't you think Gandalf would have loved to have been able to "shrink/blind" that Balrog? lol He didn't because it's just not realistic magical fantasy to allow godlike creatures to be downgraded so much to the point a human could just squash them like a bug.
End of willie's quote

Are you implying that Gandalf was a human?

Reply #15 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting sjaminei, reply 13



Quoting willie sanderson,
reply 12
realistic magical fantasy


Lol.

Do you see what you are typing mate?

 
End of sjaminei's quote

Yeah! You got a problem with it mat? :) There's even a point where fantasy isn't plausible. :)

Reply #16 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Gaunathor, reply 15



Quoting willie sanderson,
reply 12
Don't you think Gandalf would have loved to have been able to "shrink/blind" that Balrog? lol He didn't because it's just not realistic magical fantasy to allow godlike creatures to be downgraded so much to the point a human could just squash them like a bug.


Are you implying that Gandalf was a human?
End of Gaunathor's quote

Are you implying he's not? ;)

Reply #17 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Lord, reply 14
A game in which people are rulers of nations due to their skill in magic, should mean that magic is powerful enough to effect all things.  So, if I create a magic focused Sov, in a game about magic wielding Sovs, I should be weaker and unable to defeat powerful creatures without having to also be a great warrior?  I've always hated that in games.  My Sov should be able to gain power enough to destroy any other creature in the world. This is a game where civilization exist through my will and the world is reborn through my power.  But I can't fucking blind a dragon with a spell?  
End of Lord's quote

Exactly ;) There are limits to your magicalness. Afterall you are NOT A god. ;)

Reply #18 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting willie, reply 18

Quoting Lord Xia, reply 14A game in which people are rulers of nations due to their skill in magic, should mean that magic is powerful enough to effect all things.  So, if I create a magic focused Sov, in a game about magic wielding Sovs, I should be weaker and unable to defeat powerful creatures without having to also be a great warrior?  I've always hated that in games.  My Sov should be able to gain power enough to destroy any other creature in the world. This is a game where civilization exist through my will and the world is reborn through my power.  But I can't fucking blind a dragon with a spell?  


Exactly There are limits to your magicalness. Afterall you are NOT A god.
End of willie's quote

I don't agree with you Willie, or well rather, I agree with Lord Xia, a magic based sovereign SHOULD be able to cast magic on most targets, if not all targets,
and in general if you limit the magical abilities of magical sovereigns, you are limiting the player in his chosen profession, might as well just say that if the player chooses path of the warrior, he wont be able to equip any weapons to his sovereign in said boss battles.

While I don't quite agree with "My sov should be able to gain power enough to destroy any other creature in the world.", I certainly do think he needs to have the ability to still be able to participate in the fight!

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Reply #19 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting willie, reply 17
Are you implying he's not?
End of willie's quote

No, I'm outright saying he's not. Gandalf is a Maiar, same as the Balrog. 

Reply #20 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Gaunathor, reply 20



Quoting willie sanderson,
reply 17
Are you implying he's not?


No, I'm outright saying he's not. Gandalf is a Maiar, same as the Balrog. 
End of Gaunathor's quote

Yes but Patrick Stewart is Humaan. ;)

Reply #21 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Kongdej, reply 19



Quoting willie sanderson,
reply 18

Quoting Lord Xia, reply 14A game in which people are rulers of nations due to their skill in magic, should mean that magic is powerful enough to effect all things.  So, if I create a magic focused Sov, in a game about magic wielding Sovs, I should be weaker and unable to defeat powerful creatures without having to also be a great warrior?  I've always hated that in games.  My Sov should be able to gain power enough to destroy any other creature in the world. This is a game where civilization exist through my will and the world is reborn through my power.  But I can't fucking blind a dragon with a spell?  


Exactly There are limits to your magicalness. Afterall you are NOT A god.


I don't agree with you Willie, or well rather, I agree with Lord Xia, a magic based sovereign SHOULD be able to cast magic on most targets, if not all targets,
and in general if you limit the magical abilities of magical sovereigns, you are limiting the player in his chosen profession, might as well just say that if the player chooses path of the warrior, he wont be able to equip any weapons to his sovereign in said boss battles.

While I don't quite agree with "My sov should be able to gain power enough to destroy any other creature in the world.", I certainly do think he needs to have the ability to still be able to participate in the fight!

Sincerely
~ Kongdej
End of Kongdej's quote

Whether you agree or not the logic is still there. A wizard is NOT A god and if it were so that a wizard should so easily defeat a Dragon then why didn't Gandalf this GREAT WIZARD and even more by some standards didn't just rock Smaug from the skies? Afterall he later destroyed a Balrog in 8 days. Why did they need all that mess to goto its cave, why did it take a black arrow through a small tiny opening to kill him instead of Gandalf just blasting him from the skies?? eh huh? why? ;) Methink you all have been watching Pokemon episodes too much. haha

Of course in a game it really comes down to plausible reasoning by the developer and what he thinks will pass within his community. There will be those that think there should be more power allotted to the wizards/sovereigns and those that don't. I certainly don't think puny spells like blind and shrink should work on tier 9 creatures. Spells need to be dedicated to certain tiers and that's it.

Reply #22 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting willie, reply 21
Yes but Patrick Stewart is Humaan.
End of willie's quote

So? You used an example to support your argument, that humans being able to use magic to bring a much more powerful creature down to a level where a human can beat it is wrong. Yet, the example doesn't support this, because both beings are of the same kind and roughly the same power level.

Reply #23 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Gaunathor, reply 23



Quoting willie sanderson,
reply 21
Yes but Patrick Stewart is Humaan.


So? You used an example to support your argument, that humans being able to use magic to bring a much more powerful creature down to a level where a human can beat it is wrong. Yet, the example doesn't support this, because both beings are of the same kind and roughly the same power level.
End of Gaunathor's quote

And what are "Soverigns" in this game? ;) Are some not humaan? or you gonna give me some lore about the Empire? You're about to defeat your point now that wizards are godlike and perhaps Gandalf was a bad example but Tolkien wrote him as a bad example in the first place. He couldnt' decide to give him godlike powers or humaan powers based on his encounter with Smaug and then the Balrog.

Reply #24 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting willie, reply 24
And what are "Soverigns" in this game? Are some not humaan? or you gonna give me some lore about the Empire?
End of willie's quote

Seriously? What has that to do with the fact, that your example is flawed?

Quoting willie, reply 24
You're about to defeat your point now that wizards are godlike and perhaps Gandalf was a bad example but Tolkien wrote him as a bad example in the first place. He couldnt' decide to give him godlike powers or humaan powers based on his encounter with Smaug and then the Balrog.
End of willie's quote

Who said, that wizards are godlike? Also, I haven't read The Hobbit in some time, but from what I remember, Gandalf wasn't at Erebor when the battle against Smaug took place.

Reply #25 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting willie, reply 22
Whether you agree or not the logic is still there. A wizard is NOT A god and if it were so that a wizard should so easily defeat a Dragon then why didn't Gandalf this GREAT WIZARD and even more by some standards didn't just rock Smaug from the skies?
End of willie's quote

First off, you first post I quoted didn't have any logic, so no it was not there.
No one besides you are mentioning big invisible people in the sky, don't bring it here because that is far from the point.
What Gandalf can do, and what my sovereign can do is 2 whole different sets of LORE, I don't care for LotR lore when it comes to discussing a game that have nothing to do with it, and I still think that magic shouldn't be automatically resisted/ignored just because some preset pointless "TIER" of monsters... WTF is a tier of monster, this concept have only been brought up from designers to help alleviate the difficulties from designing differently powered monsters on several factions, or whatever.
This is the first time I hear the idea behind some arbitrary number decided upon by some fan of the game have any influence on whether the the spells of the monster... Because the monster decided to write a big 9 in its diary...

Sincerely
~ Kongdej