Having played the game for some time now, I must say that I´m very confident that FE will be all that WoM was not.
Everything seems to be going the right way. With time the bugs will be solved and the game will gain even more content but my real concern is with a two key aspect of the game: MAGIC and CHAMPIONS
Champions are far too overpowered, I can win a game on maximum difficulty without ever building a single army. The sov and the champs can do all the work alone.
On the other hand, magic, especially direct damage magic is far underpowered when compared to melee damage, except when it comes to fireballing standard troops.
In my gameplay experience I have only used magic for the occasional buff, or for strategic map effects. I have completely abandoned magic as means to deal damage or negative status. The action that would cost me cast a spell is far better used making a melee attack, not to mention that building a spellcaster champ/sov is far less cost effective than making a melee on (be assassin, defender or warrior).
So I would just level up a spell caster until I got the spell ranks I wished and let all the tactical combat be done by melee combatants.
I gave a quick scan trough the forums and my concerns seem to be shared by other people. So I decided to take the time and put my suggestions in here.
It is a relatively long post, but I guess it´s worth reading, there was a lot of consideration on how to make FE a better game and the success that both stardock and the players deserve.
*Experience should be shared between the sov, champs and troops involved in the battle.
On of the reasons I can create uber champions is because they don’t share XP. They all get the same xp, be it with one or with nine.
I usually got one doing all the work, and others remain safely behind, just enjoying the XP.
I don´t think the is need to increase the xp cap for lvl up, but instead think on a better way to distribute it.
* Rebalance combat. One hit one kill. The flanked condition. The overpower trait. The rock paper scissor approach.
Based on the suggestions and feedback on the topic, I´m editing the original post to reflect the more polished idea that everybody contributed for.
I´ve suggest somewhere else already a one hit one kill rule. Many seens to have liked the idea, while others worried that it would change too much of how combat works or nerf too much the champs. I´ve given a little bit more of thought on the idea and considered all the comments. See what you guys think:
First and foremost: eliminate or mitigate those +1 per level bonus (could be +1 per 2, 3, 4 ou five level), that’s all balance.
Second: every attack, be it magical or physical will not be able to kill more than one figure per attacking figure in the army, unless some special trait or property says otherwise.
That would be valid for the sovereign, the champions, ordinary troops and monsters.
This would automatically nerf the melee sov/champs (specially the high crits assassins) who can no longer take down 9 figure unit in a single hit. Since the damage it deals was not diminished it will still be a powerful unit when it comes down to deal with powerful single figure units. Of course, traits could allow the champ to take down one or two extra figures…
That obviously doesn´t solve the super melee champs/sovs problem. It would only drag combats longer, instead of finishing it in 9 turns, it would take 81 turns to finish, but the invulnerable champions problem persists. If no unit can hit it or pierce it´s defenses, them he is invincible, just taking it´s time to finish of the poor troopers.
So the solution is adding a new trait. This trait could be called “flanking” for melee troops and “arrow swarm” for the archers. Essentially, multi figure units would reduce the dodge/defense of single figure units that suffers their attack. If every multi figure unit would have it, or it would have to be bought, or how much the reduction would be is a balance question. I personally think it should be a nice % reduction, so the benefits would scale. Better yet, having 2 or more units with flanking adjacent, would further reduce the def/doge. Even a lvl 30 verga would think twice before going in the middle of 3 city militia.
That logic would be valid for troops vs powerful monsters too. So you could send an entire army to deal with a dragon, if a powerful hero is unavailable.
That pretty much nerf the champions, without truly nerfing them. That’s the beauty. They remain almost as powerful as they are today, buy they will no longer single handily win games, take towns, etc..
Troops are suddenly important again, they can deal with champs and powerful monsters. But there still the matter of how they fare against magic.
As I have proposed, the one hit one kill would be valid for spells too, unless they have the overpower trait. The difference of the current overpower is that it would not cause damage multiplication, but instead allows damage to carry on to as many figures in the unit as it can. Needless to say, most attack spells would have this trait, including the fireball and similar. Without the damage multiplier, mages are dangerous to “hordes” of enemies, without turning them to dust in one turn.
But still, a very high init mage could cast two or three fireballs while the opposing army still close together. The solution is also simple: just increase the cast time. Spells so powerfull should take more time to cast, even giving opposing mages time to counter, creating cool and memorable spell duels. Other suggestion is allowing the troops to position themselves before combat begins (maybe a future trait for a general like hero), giving them the opportunity to split.
That takes us to the rock paper scissor approach that some suggested.
I must say that I really dislike it when it is inflexible (like the europa universalis games). I like more the “right tool for the job” approach of the civilization games. A spearman/pikeman is the right/best tool for fighting mounted units, but not the only one, and not a guarantee of success.
The above proposition tales us close to the civ style:
Multi figure troops (especially in numbers) are the best way to deal with single powerful non magical units.
Magical units are the best way to deal with multi figure troops.
Powerful single melee units are the best way to deal with mages.
But nothing is written in stone. Knowing that my opponent has 5 fire shards, I could equip my troops with fire protection equips and buffs. That would force the opponent to change strategies.
Knowing that the other army has a magekiller champion, my sov could cast several debuffs, summons or terrain control spells instead of trying to cast direct damage spells at him.
My almighty dragonslaying knight in shining armor, when faced with an army of peasants would remember that discretion is the better part of valor and run, maybe drawing away that army from a city or a vulnerable resource.
Of course, lots of balance needs to be done for it all to work, maybe even bringing back the dual build queue or radically reducing regular troops costs and training time, but I belive the solution for worst balance problem is there.
*New traits and rebalancing of the path of the mage tree
First, I guess that instead of increasing the spells damage, it would be nice to increase the evoker bonuses (like doubling them). On the other hand, strategic damage dealing spells should severely nerfed or eliminated.
A new set of traits dealing with summoned creatures would be nice, especially with the summoning spells I’m also suggesting. Those would be (of course opened to balancing)
Summoner I – caster summoned creatures are 25% stronger
Summoner II - caster summoned creatures are 50% stronger
Summoner III - caster summoned creatures are 100% stronger
Unshakable bounds - caster summoned creatures have double resistance (helps prevent banishing, should be rare)
*Make spell rank more important and balanced
As things are now, spell ranks add little to the game. They open up few spells, the different “schools” of magic are unbalanced and many of the coolest spells in the game are gained randomly through quests.
The suggestion here is that all spells should be accessible by unlocking spell ranks or by researching spellbooks. Some of the cooler/more powerful ones could require ranks in two or more “schools” (like sunder currently does).
The spell research that existed in WoM would be essentially replaced by choosing spell ranks when leveling up.
Every school should have combat and support spells. In fact, I would say at least one high damage one hit one kill, one mid damage single target overpower (carry on damage, not multiplier), one lower damage overpower (carry on damage, not multiplier) area damage, one very low damage strategic map damage spell and several buffs/debuffs as appropriate.
The school/shard would determine the damage type and other peculiarities to make each spell unique.
So spell research on the tech tree would be restricted to those that are too important to be restricted by school, or that does not fall well in one school (like the spells involving mobility, summonin or mind control). Also, to prevent abuses, some of those researched spells should require a minimum rank in any spell to be castable.
Here goes a few examples of the new balanced spells ranks and spellbooks:
Metamagic knowledge
In this book, chanelers learn that the ancient archmages of elemental treated magic as science, and learns to do likewise
Conterspell (rebalanced) (requires apprentice level in any school of magic): same as it is
Dispel (new) (requires disciple level in any school of magic): removes all good enchantments from the unit, unless it resists
Spell Purge (new) (requires disciple level in any school of magic): removes all bad enchantments from the unit, unless the original caster resists
Spell lock (new) (requires mage level in any school of magic) tactical (one battle only) or strategic (with maintenance): spell that must be dispelled or purge before dispel or spell purge can affect other enchantments. Its resist value is doubled. Can be cast on summoned creatures to prevent banishment
Disjunction (new) (requires mage level in any school of magic), strategic only: try to dipell on enchantment affecting a city or square. The original caster get a resist check.
Mana shield (rebalanced) (requires master level in any school of magic) tactical only: same as it is, but can only be casted on the caster
Mana blast (rebalanced) (requires archmage level in any school of magic), tactical only, does damage equal to 1/10 of the victims mana pool and costs double that amount to the caster. Affects every sovereign or imbued champion on the battlefield and takes as many turns to cast as there are targets. Can be resisted for half damage
Great unsummoning (new) (requires archmage level in any school of magic), tactical only, every summoned unit in the battlefield must resist or be banished. 3 turns to cast. Should be very mana expensive and the units should get a resist bonus.
Book of mobility
This volume deals with the secrets of space and time, allowing the caster a greater, but still limited, control of his movements and the movements of others.
Escape (tactical) (requires apprentice level in any school of magic): The caster alone can escape combat
Greater Escape (tactical) (requires disciple level in any school of magic): The caster and his army can escape combat.
Retreat (strategic) (requires disciple level in any school of magic): The caster alone retreats to the nearest friendly city.
Greater retreat (strategic) (requires mage level in any school of magic): The caster and his army retreats to the nearest friendly city.
Blink (tactical) (requires master level in any school of magic): The caster can teleport to any square in the battlefield
Teleport (strategic) (requires archmage level in any school of magic): The caster alone can teleport to any friendly square.
Book of summoning and calling
This volume enables the caster to summon creatures, for this world or elsewhere, to fight for the caster. The higher the caster lvl, the higher the lvl of the summoned creature.
Summoner´s boon (removed) – should become a path of the mage trait
Natures call (rebalanced) – (requires apprentice level in any school of magic), tactical (one battle only) or strategic (with maintenance), summon a random beast to fight for the caster
Elemental summoning (new) - (requires disciple level in any school of magic), tactical (one battle only) or strategic (with maintenance), summon a random elemental to fight for the caster
Banish (new) (requires disciple level in any school of magic), tactical only: summoned unit must resist or be banished
Demon bounding (new) - (requires mage level in any school of magic), tactical (one battle only) or strategic (with maintenance), summon a random demon to fight for the caster
Dragon command (new) - (requires master level in any school of magic), tactical (one battle only) or strategic (with maintenance), summon a random dragon to fight for the caster
Steal bond (new) - (requires master level in any school of magic), tactical only, takes control of enemy summoned unit if it fails to resist.
Call Titan (rebalanced/new) - (requires archmage level in any school of magic), strategic only, summon a titan to serve the caster. Consumes a life or a death shard. Only one titan per faction. If titan is killed, casting this spell again brings back the same titan (with levels eventually gained)
Dragon mount (new) - (requires archmage level in any school of magic), strategic only, summon a dragon to serve as mount to the caster.
Book of the mind
This old tome goes deep into the secrets of the mind, both good ou for evil. Spells of this book doesn´t work on elementals or constructs.
Touch of darkness (rebalanced) – (requires apprentice level in any school of magic), strategic only, same effect
Confusion (rebalanced) -(requires disciple level in any school of magic), tactical only, same effect
Mind blast (new) - (requires mage level in any school of magic), tactical only, untyped mid damage, single target, unlimited range
Cloak of fear(rebalanced) -(requires master level in any school of magic) tactical (one battle only) or strategic (with maintenance), same effect, but the caster can only cast on himself
Domination (rebalanced) - (requires archmage level in any school of magic), tactical only, takes control of unit that fails to resist. At the end of every one of its turns, the unit is allowed a new resist check to break free.
Air school
Shocking touch (new) – apprentice, tactical, high lightning damage, one hit one kill, single target, range one
Summon air shrill (new) – apprentice, tactical (one battle only) or strategic (with maintenance), summon an air shrill.
Storm (rebalance) – disciple, tactical, mid lightning damage, overpower, single target, unlimited range
Lightning weapon (new) – disciple, tactical (one battle only) or strategic (with maintenance), add low Lightning damage to unit´s attack.
Summon air elemental (new) – mage, tactical (one battle only) or strategic (with maintenance), summon a weaker air elemental (without titan´s breath)
Lightning shield (new) – mage, tactical (one battle only) or strategic (with maintenance), add mid resistance (%) to Lightning damage.
Thunderstorm (new) – master, tactical, low lightning damage, overpower, area one, unlimited range, chance to paralyze for one turn if target does not resist
Cloud walk (rebalanced)- master, strategic, moves (teleport) the caster army 2 squares in any direction (including enemy territory and over obstacles), plus one square per air shard, can be cast only once per turn.
Flight (new) – archmage, tactical (one battle only) or strategic (with maintenance), gives the unit the ability to flight at his speed.
Tornado (rebalanced)– archmage, strategic, very low blunt damage, affects all units, overpower, randomly scatters one unit per air shard that does not resist, can be cast only on the casters territory, can be cast only once per turn.
Summon elemental prince of air (new) - archmage, strategic, consumes an air shard. Only one prince of air per faction. If the prince is killed, casting this spell again brings back the same prince (with levels eventually gained).
Other spells seem OK, maybe needing some rebalancing in terms of costs and magnitude.
Few multi school suggestions:
Summon shrill lord (master in fire, earth, air and water), plus X levels per fire, earth, air or water shard.
Antipode (mage in fire and water), very high fire and cold damage, single target, unlimited range.
Dust Storm (disciple air and earth), every unit in the field (friend or foe, except the caster) must resist or get an accuracy penalty.
Storm call (master air and water): every unit (except the caster), every turn must resist or be hit by a lightning bolt. Consumes mana every turn.
Eruptions (disciple earth and fire): every turn a random square on the battle might erupt (the more shards, the more squares). A unit standing or entering a erupted square takes damage.
Several create golems options. Golems would not be considered summoned creatures, and could only be created outside combat (strategic spells) they should cost mana and gold to create and have a relatively high gold maintence (but not mana). Maybe “golemcraft” could be a researchable spellbook
Create sand golem (apprentice earth, air, life or death)
Create scrap golem (disciple water, earth, life or death)
Create stone golem (mage earth, life or death)
Create magma golem (master earth, fire, life or death)
Create obsidian golem (archmage earth, air, fire, water, life or death)
Sorry for the bad English, but its not my native language.
I think levels should become more exponential after level reaches a certain number, so you can't keep piling on levels.
it is not the level, it is the stats. Even if you have 100 level, but if your stats are almost the same as level 1, then there is no problem with it. The logic is always the same. A unit with 1000 hp, 30 str, dex, def, etc would be able to handle 10 units with 100 hp, 10 str, dex, def, etc single handedly. That's because of the value of ATT and DEF. Even if you have 100 units, if none of them have ATT that can penetrate the enemy DEF, then it useless. You can be destroyed by only 1 enemy unit.
Unless there is fatigue stat the decrease the capability of a unit in battle.
For example, at the beginning of the battle, every units are fresh or have 0 fatigue. Then when your unit attack the enemy or being attacked by the enemy, the fatigue is increase. This fatigue will decrease your unit ATT and DEF capability. at 100% fatigue, your unbeatable unit will have 0 ATT and 0 DEF. so, even when you have 100 ATT and DEF but fight a lot of weaker enemy alone, several time later, your unit will become useless and will be killed easily by the enemy.
Work and study duties here on this side of the screen will prevent me from playing the beta or offering any feedback until de middle of march.
I don´t know how much the game will have gone down the gold path, so I´ll just spill out all my impressions and suggestions and hope I can help make elemental the classic it deserves. Especially considering everything you guys have said so far!
*The game still feels numb….
FE was a HUGE improvement over WoM. The “every title is important” has worked great. I rarely got the terrible feeling of “nothing to do” that make quit so many WoM games.
BUT, the game still feels somewhat numb, once the initial excitement is gone, I´m always getting the sensation that no matter what I do, it´s all the same. Just lvl up the sov or a couple of champs, and steamroll everything on the way.
Maybe it´s a result of the current lake of challenge in the game, but I guess a little more personality would be great.
I´ll post ahead some ideas on that.
*Right now FE is actually a roguelike RPG game with some rather unimportant strategy elements
While I´m big fan of both pen and paper and PC RPGs, and I´m looking forward for the future stardock RPG, FE is supposed to be a strategy game, and unfortunately is failing at that…
Champions, monster slaying, questing are supposed to be just an spicy salsa, not the main dish (don´t know if that worked in English, but I guess everybody got the idea).
As things are now, how you build up your sov and what equips you got “from the world” is far far more important than where you build your cities, what techs you research and what armies you build. That hardly makes up a good strategy game.
*The sov and the champs are too powerful
That issue is more than debated already, I guess everybody agrees on it. The trick is toning them down, without making then irrelevant. I have a few suggestions on that front on the end of the post, based on the original idea and everybody comments
*Magic doesn´t fell magical
While I´m not saying that magic is intrinsically underpowered (on the contrary, there are pretty abusable spells needing balance already), I don’t get the magic and enchantment from FE, that MoM caused me when first played it years ago, and still causes me to this day.
I agree right on with anyone that says that’s a rather subjective affirmation on my part, but I guess most of the players will agree that we need more magic in the game (not necessarily more powerful magic, not necessarily a grater number of spells, but we need to “feel” more magic in FE).
Is the “magic feel” that makes me come back to MoM from time to time, even though it doesn´t offer me any real challenge (the AI sucks, big time), But it is so magical, there are so many options to be explored that I have fun, regardless of the AI and the age of the game.
Somehow we got to capture that feeling and put it into o FE (easier said than done, I recognize). I got a few suggestions of new spells, magic books, traits, paths in other treads, but SD could shamelessly borrow some from MoM.
I really would like to some global spells, like that one from MoM that would slowly fill the world with volcanoes!
*Diplomacy needs a lot of improvement
Diplomacy itself needs polishing, and the diplomacy AI must be worked on.
The AI declares war on players on the other side of the world, and insists on wars it cannot win, just because it got a larger power rating.
It also demands outrageous amounts of gold for treaties that of its own interest, like trade agreements.
I´d suggest a “war exhaustion” rating. The grater the war exhaustion, the greater the unrest, and the more likely the AI would be to accept a peace offer.
I´d also suggest an “open borders” agreement (breakable at any time), separated from the non aggression pact.
*Auto resolve appears to be broken
I see everyone complaining about the lack of the “no mana” autoresolve button (count me among them), but I don´t see many people paying attention to the fact that the autoresolve differs wildly form tactically played battle, even if you let the AI tack charge of both sides with auto play.
I haven´t paid attention to that at first, since I won every battle anyway (like everyone else, I guess), but when trying to save mana, the issue caught my eye.
I might be completely wrong on that, but I guess the autoresolve is too abstract, not taking into account certain abilities and traits of the units, mobility on the battlefield and so on, resulting in very different results.
Since I guess that all AI x AI must be solved trough the autoresolve calculations, there must be a special attention to that.
Rebalance combat. One hit one kill. The flanked condition. The overpower trait. The rock paper scissor approach.
If you guys agree keep suggesting and keep the post alive, maybe the devs will embrace the idea!
My last suggestion for now is redoing the paths and traits, they are uninspired, unbalance and full of useless or overpowered traits. I particularly dislike how there are 3 might paths and only one magic one. I´ve been thinking about the following:
1) Choose a basic path right on sovereign creation. Every champion already starts with a basic path
2) Latter on, (maybe around lvl 5) choose a specialization.
3)Waaaay later (lvl 15-20) give another shot at a path or specilization, for some “multiclassing”
The paths and the specializations:
1)Path of the mage
- the wizard (MoM like reclusive wizard that I suggested earlier)
- the summoner (already gave some ideas)
- the evoker (close to the current path of the mage, it´s all about damage)
- the Hexer (a debuffer, with trains increasing duration, power and reducing the chances of resisting debuffs)
- the Saint (a buffer, same as above)
2)Path of the warrior (no bonus for the army)
-The Knight - a defender, lots of con and def, maybe sobe traits to draw damage and avoid flanking (like I suggested above)
-the assassin – high dodge, high crit
-the weapon master – mix def and dodge, high no crit damage, special moves (like sweep, or a way to kill more than one figure
3)Path of the leader (bonus for armies/champs)
-the general – bonus for regular troops, quicker training, etc..
-the adventurer (or the bard)– bonus for champions and sov, cheaper recruitment cost, etc
-the tamer – bonus for monstrous troops (beasts, twisted, dragons, etc.. but not for elementals and demons, those would fall into the summoner), quicker training, etc…
4)Path of the governor
-the greenthumbed – food bonus
-the banker – gold bonus
-the engineer – construction bonus
-the loremaster – research bonus
I think this way things are more balanced, and add much more “soul” to the game.
I would also add a summon champion spell to the game, so you could explore all possibilities, without depending of the randomly placed ones
1. High level gives you many stat boosting feats.
2. Level gives you 2xlevel bonus to accuracy, 1xlevel bonus to spell mastery, 1xlevel bonus to spell resistance.
3. There is a feat that gives 1xlevel bonus to strength, and one for int.
4. There are items that give 1xlevel bonus to a variety of stats / abilities.
5. Top level items give an obscene boost even without the 1xlevel bonuses.
Idea: Maybe champions can only kill 1 unit per turn/unless they have certain abilities such as double strike, or use magic. Double strike would allow killing of two units. Monsters would keep their ability.
Sweep would be 1 unit per square
This would nerf champs vs armies, but leave the other balance intact. It also makes some sort of logical sense. I can see champions focusing hard on initiative in such a scenario though, which would likely be the new power tactic. Also melee heros would have to be tough, as they'd probably have to take 2-3 hits or so to kill a regular unit of 5.
Downside is I could see this getting boring/annoying.
Radical changes to the way the game works aren't needed. All champions need is some sort of nerf to health, experience, or progression. Why do champions basically start with more health then entire squads? Higer recruiting costs and wages are a must as well.
Troops need higher starting health and to lose less dmg when they are attacked. Making it so squads don't lose members until they lose over 50% of health would work. The ability to make squads of exsting units larger is a must as well.
Magic is fine if you fix all the multipliers that basically make it free to cast and balance some of the more rediculous spells. The overblow spells should do a basic amount of dmg and then a much smaller amount of overblow dmg. So say fireball does 10 dmg + 3 dmg to each individaul, instead of 8 dmg to each individual.
This
And it wouldn't be annoying or boring, there is way too much 1 hit kills in FE right now, Slower more tactical battles when armies are involved would only increase the fun. Right now its just a matter of running in and killing things before they can hit you.
While this would work as well I think that Alstein's Suggestion would open up more tactical options. As well as more interesting talents and abilities.
Lets clarify this by saying that any unit can't kill more members of a squad in one hit then itself has.
I am just worried this will be a patch over bad balance. The same thing could really be accomplshed by balancing heroes well. Besides once you get a overblow weapon or trait you would have the same problem and have to balance it all out anyway. Champions are just too tough and units too fragile period. Champions end up one shotting everything and everything oneshots infantry or close enough that they lose the ability to do dmg.
It's really difficult to just power down champions, because although they are wading through enemy infantry, against monsters and each other they feel more or less ok.
The problem is that the game cannot distinguish between VOLUME of damage output, and QUALITY of damage output, because it rolls everything into one big Attack stat. Heroes should take a long time to take down infantry, but be one of the few units capable of really hurting enemy monsters, while units should be much more efficient at taking down other units and dealing damage to low quality foes. The game thinks that five swings of a hero's sword is the same as one swing of an ogre's club, which it's clearly not. Both could theoretically do similar damage, but it depends what against.
Most other game system like D&D or Warhammer give heroes multiple attack dice as the gain power, and then add the damage for each together, (like Squads supposedly have at the moment) instead of endlessly increasing the damage of their 1 attack like elemental does. Hitting and missing could fulfill the function of distinguishing quality from quantity, but the problem there is that you can't make half of all attacks miss, without slowing the game down massively, so it's not properly implemented.
If, instead of increasing champions Attack values endlessly, we gave them multiple attack DICE, like units have, then they'd be able to do competetive damage without huge attack values. And we'd be able to implement hit/miss properly, because each of these dice could roll to hit individually, so that you could partially miss in many turns and still do damage.
I talked about this in more detail here.
First time poster on these forums and I just wanted to chime in here. I played E:WOM and now E:FE Beta and I can't agree more with taltamir. I think we have common desire on how we would like the direction on this game to go.
Both elemental games kind of have this problem, although in this beta it feels even more so. I mean the way I've been playing, I can just use my sov and monster kill over and over until he has the best items and steamroll everything, cities, ancient monsters, huge epic armies, it doesn't matter. In the end the victory does not feel very strategic or gratifying. I mean as it is right now, this is no strategy. You don't need magic, armies or champions for that matter.
I think age of wonders had the best system for this type of game by keeping sov's relatively weak, and help the armies by spellcasting within their domain, or enchanting weapons for their champions. I also agree that research for your armies to equip weapons should be a little faster.
Right now, FE has some nice stuff going for it, but its too much of the same. I hate to say make this game more like age of wonders because the devs want to make this game stand out on its own, but that's the direction I would be taking with this game.
IMO, Something that could also work would be limiting the number of heroes per stack to 1. Still some kind of tweaks to their experience, stats and progression, as you mentioned, would be needed. But heroes would have a slower levelling pace and would need the help of units to advance.
I agree that trained units need to be more relative. "One hit, one unit killed" would help a lot. In fact, that alone may be enough to balance them. The only real downside I see to that is that it would greatly increase combat time and that is no small consideration. Frogboy has said more than once that keeping tactical combat short is a major consideration and one I agree with. I think I like the idea that magic breaks that rule - at least partially. It would beef up magic quite a bit and help to shorten combat.
Extreme care needs to be taken with regards to champions and nerfing them. They need to be powerful units in their own right but not so powerful that they can steamroll once they reach a certain point. Getting rid of attributes that are +1 per level is a reasonable idea worth play-testing. The other area I see where Champions could use some balancing downward in on initiative. What is needed are units that are uniquely powerful against them.
I like the quality vs quantity discussion. That would give groups of trained units an advantage.
I can't imagine any circumstances where I would be willing to sacrifice a shard to cast a spell unless it unlocked a spell so powerful that it was a game-changer. So balancing that would be difficult. It would have to be something WORTH sacrificing a shard for.
They’d do so much good by simply applying a little bit of holistic design and balance to it all, even with the mechanics just as they are. It’s not just that they haven’t worked out how powerful a late game champion and a late game unit are and made sure they’re competitive against each other, it’s that I’m not sure they’ve even worked it out so they’’ll both arrive at the same time. Am I really supposed to have a level 15 sovereign before my troops have chainmail?
Exactly, throw in the fact that it is also possible for that level 15 champion to have pieces of platemail and uber powerful magical weapons and you end up with some seriously warped balance.The ability of champions to level and acquire equipment needs to be slowed. Also a lot of equipment could use a nerf, champion equipment only has to be a little better then normal, not 4X as good.
Before any big changes to the mechanics are implemented the simple balance things need to be fixed, if there is still a problem then maybe we need a 1 hit system, but the simple balance things come first.
Well, I'd argue that you need to design your mechanics before you work out the numbers needed to make it work, but I'm quibbling. Limitations on how many men can be killed with a single strike seem very artificial to me. You'd end up focusing on attack up to a certain number, and then not all because you'd reached the cap. I'd rather something more general and fundamental like limiting champions attack values and giving them multiple attack dice. But whatever.
If they can't get it sorted by release that champions don't reach epic levels until the late game, I'd rather they halved all xp rewards and gave out a steady stream of xp per turn to compensate. Or technologies that gave champions XP. Or just anything to reduce the risk of me accidentally creating a demi-god.
Just make the monsters stronger. That should force you to use some support troops
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