Who can ever forget the epic battle shown at the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring? Sauron the Maiar was able to wipe out hosts of men and elves in a single swing. So terrible and powerful was he that he single handedly kept the armies of the last alliance at bay.
And yet…
There is a balance. Because what most people don’t realize is that the power of Sauron seemed great only in relation to his foes. Some time in the past, the host of Numenor – mortal men – no elves, so overwhelmed Sauron and his allies – when Sauron was at his peek, that they were able to take him prisoner (this didn’t end well for Numenor in the long run).
And before then…
The half-elf, Luthien’s guardian companion, Huan, single handedly defeated Sauron in combat. Single. Handedly. Huan was, essentially, a dog. How’s that for humiliating?
A single elf nearly crippled Morgoth in single combat. Morgoth is to Sauron what Sauron is to Aragorn. Morgoth was a Valar, an entire order beyond what Sauron was. Practically a god.
The point being is that you don’t have to cripple the champions to make the soldiers you train relatively powerful. The challenge is balance. And it is, to be certain, a significant challenge.
In the world of Elemental…
In the picture above, on the left, is Resana. She is the Empress of Krax. A Level 6 Channeler. She is quite mighty but only a wisp of what she will become later. Next to her is a party of Krax Legionaires. In Beta 5-B, they take 8 seasons to train (in Beta 5-A, the current public one, they’d take 17 turns to train). In 1 on 1 combat, Resana would win unless the Legionaires got lucky in combat (critical hits). But if there were two parties of them, she’d lose.
What changed?
What made training units unpleasant was that unless they were total junk, they took a long time to train. The equipment and skills were simply adding far too much training time. Why bother researching all this great tech if you couldn’t build it? So a considerable amount of time was spent relooking at how much equipment and traits should cost.
Another big change has to do with loot. This is something we will be working more on. But in previous betas, it was common (literally) to find high end weapons very quickly – just laying around.
What we are moving towards, instead, is where you find cool loot early on but it’s not nearly as over powering. Your sovereign and champions start out with fairly low grade weapons (8 attack). It’s a bit de-balancing to simply luck out and find a 12 attack +4 speed weapon. That’s a 50% increase in raw damage not to mention a 25% improvement in initiative.
So instead, Resana finds interesting weapons with trade-offs. A Iron War Hammer that does 12 attack (yay) but weighs a lot (slowing her down) and lowers her initiative. It makes her tougher in battle (she is doing more damage after all) but it also means she’d need troops to keep herself from getting swarmed. That’s just one example.
Powerful, rare weapons are out there still. But they have to be earned. You won’t just turn over some lost cargo and find a magic broad sword anymore.
The other change we made has to do with hit points. Previously, units gained 4 hit points per level. So by level 10, that’s an additional 40 HP. It doesn’t take long before the trained units become almost irrelevant to the battle because that level 10 champion would have 60 HIP while that newly trained unit might half less than half of that.
The Goal
We do want players who have invested in their champions to be able to win epic battles, single handedly. However, we also want players who invest in building an empire to be able to achieve victory equally effectively. In the early betas, the champions were considered to weak. The pendulum has swung too far the other way. Beta 5-B will be our first pass at bringing balance to this conflict.
These balance changes sound great.
I want to have more incentive to have troops than right now. I'd also love to see research impact/help/progress champions to a greater degree. Right now the only benefit lies in buying equipment you've researched, but something that would add traits, give XP, etc. sounds cool. We have some of that with the Magic line, but both Civics (for those Governor-based champions) and Warfare to add more benefits would be nice.
I think we all know how I would solve the gap between units and heroes. Give levelup bonuses to Fortress from the city level. You can even tie hero power to cities by adding in new shop items from hero techs or simply reduce the cost of shop items over the course of the game so more heroes can get great armor and start to level.
I also like the idea that some monsters like Trolls and Ogres should be more powerful, midgame foes. If you see one in an area, run. Come back later on and try to kill them off before they grow into an army. The rewards from loot and new resources will drive this sort of balance.
Let the champions go to the weaponsmith and armor and design their armorer. After completing it costs, 175 gold, 35 crystals, and 20 materials. or whatever. This will let you customize your champions a little bit more.
[quote who="Jean=A=Luc" reply="16" id="3236675"]
The whole differing group sizes thing should've been axed imo. It just complicates balance so much. One group size for the entire game would work just fine and everything could be more easily balanced around it. [/quote]
The thing is, guys, we can have an honest difference of opinion about this. Actually, I like that fact that trained units grow in size, over the course of the game, as their training and tactics improve (including group cohesion, and interdependence). To me, this just feels right ; like with Greek phalanxes representing better fighting units, as they evolved over time; and later: Roman legionaires, etc.
Again, it's an honest difference of opinion. Some of us (at least me) like the groups to grow over time, as part of their tactical evolution ...
One Big Area of Agreement: Frogboy's Post here sounds great -- well thought out, and responsive to the feedback that many of us have been providing. Balance Rules !
Guys (modders) look at this poxnora rune list (champions) maybe create more neutral monsters based on this list(with unique abilites) ?
http://www.gis.com.qa/poxnora-rune-list&page=4
http://www.gis.com.qa/poxnora-rune-list&page=2
http://www.gis.com.qa/poxnora-rune-list&page=3
http://www.gis.com.qa/poxnora-rune-list&page=5
http://www.gis.com.qa/poxnora-rune-list&page=6
http://www.gis.com.qa/poxnora-rune-list&page=7
http://www.poxpulse.com/search/faction/forsaken-wastes
http://www.poxpulse.com/rune/id/964
http://www.poxpulse.com/rune/id/391
http://www.poxpulse.com/rune/id/1098
http://www.poxpulse.com/rune/id/218
http://www.poxpulse.com/rune/id/1137
http://www.poxpulse.com/rune/id/146
http://www.poxpulse.com/rune/id/967
I hope for more, much more new units in FE created by SD and community.
This is represented well enough through army size. Adding squads to it is redundant. The game would be so much easier to balance if everything was a single unit.
Perhaps the game would be easier to balance if everything was a single unit ... But I just don't think it would be as interesting. Again, another honest difference of opinion. (BTW, I am not really attempting to change the minds of folks who feel differently -- I am just expressing my viewpoint -- a counter viewpoint.) And once more:
Balance Rules !
I do agree the group sizes should be changed so the group-size scaling would mean less. But I don't think it should go, group sizes is a good idea, sadly not very well implemented into the strategy, nor is there any depth or choices behind group size.
I agree with you Orion. Trained units growing in size vs better weaponry and armour vs logistics (how many seperate units an army can hold) vs Heroes is a grand system with interesting twists, strategies and tradeoffs. With the new changes announced for the next beta version we will all see this is coming into place.
Some people are perhaps allergic against building 3 men units and always wait for corporation to buid units. In the old betas this didn't bother so much, but I guess with this new patch waiting for corporation to build units will be a rather ineffective strategy (and that was exactly what this squad system of soldiers needed; thumbs up for the developers clear sight).
This idea deserves serious consideration. After some thought I can't think of anything the current group size system adds to the game. If you could only build groups of 5 the game would be less complicated and easier to balance. Troops wouldn't grow in strength to the rediulous degee they do now. One of the biggest problems right now is that trained end game troops are 100 times stronger then early game troops.
Indeed.
I am still thinking about this one as I play, but generally agree.
This needs to be addressed! It's one of the few issues remaining that needs to be addressed.
Well, the benefits with the system is pretty obvious. It's called strategical choice. Do you go for better weapons and armory first, or do you go for huger squads (meaning more hitpoints and more concentrated arms power), or perhaps I want to fit more heroes and units into an army (Having 5 instead of 4 units in an army of course can mean a great deal too)? It's even more balanced then a just getting the best weapons first system.
Another balancing benefit is the alternatives squads gives to the dependence of ressources like metal and horse. Some of the beauty of this game is in all the alternative routes you can go. Have no iron or horse? Well, get huger groups of spearmen and archers, and perhaps get those level 5 and 7 heroes asap, instead on concentrating on metal needing weapon techs. You don't hear cries here saying: I have no metal, I have no chance, it's game over.
The problem has been, and still is until the next patch is released atleast, that there hasn't been any need for units in the early stages of the game. Your heroes has gotten too much good stuff (weapons, units, armor) early on, and has too easely grown in hitpoints, reducing the need for support troops. Players have gotten away with not building troops before they've had both better weapons and better squad sizes availble anyways. We have never actually had the hard decission of choosing and prioritizing here.
Now this will change. I'm sure all will see this in a clearer view when we play the next beta version.
The question is if it will change enough. In MoM, a level 1 hero pretty much can't kill anything at all. He is babysat by your troops until he is high enough level to babysit them back as he kills the powerful single monsters like dragons.
I'd like to see that mechanic return. Stop throwing single wolves, ruffians and darklings at us in the early game and force us to deal with mixed groups of singles and 3+ from the get-go, so that we have start out building troops to progress.
Huan was not just a "dog"... more like a wolf dog, from valinor. A god dog, or dog god if you will.
I see nothing wrong in being able to win the game with heroes only either, but it should be an unefficient way to win.
I'm sure it will be alot more efficient now to do an early military tech or two and build some units to support your heroes. It certainly sounds like it reading the patch notes. After that there will be some really hard choices presented: Go even further up in military tech and get even better hero support in the form of horses and better weapons both for heroes and units, but delaying huger squads and more building options from the civilization tree, or more and better heroes being able to be recruited and the magical stuff in the magic tree.......
I can clearly see the choosing here will be alot harder and fun, and finally as intended more or less.
If we are going to get less special equipment from looting and killing weaker monsters, I think we should be able to sell equipment for a higher price at the shops. I think this was nerfed because of all the amazing items we were finding randomly.
Also, and this may just be a wish, I think it would be great if we could set the aggression levels for a unit on the strategic map. I often have wolves, bears, or other glass cannons in my champs army, and I don't feel like I can just auto-resolve a battle (even against mites) for fear of losing those units. If I was to manually play out the battle, I would just send my hero up front and leave my glass cannons in the back until whatever I'm fighting is weak enough to send them in. But auto-resolve often results in the glass cannons getting very wounded or dying. If I could set their aggression level to timid or something like that, I could auto-resolve and they would still get the experience, but would not likely die.
I don't believe there is a way to balance it so that heavily invested champions can solo "epic battles" and also trained units are still useful. There is not a wide variety of paths for champions, either you are making it as powerful as possible in combat or you are depositing them in a town for the governor bonus.
FE needs trained units to be essential to any type of victory. It needs to be impossible to win without building trained units, and until that balance is achieved the game will play the same every time.
I also don't like that there is a pretty large pool of cool weapons and armor but it is very rare that you get anything super good before the game ends. I really think that if you are cutting back on the items champions get that we need some item creation spells or similar to make up the difference.
Agreed, an option to upgrade the number of troops in a stack (as the appropriate technologies are researched) is only logical.
It should be doable as a rush cost in a city that is idle at the moment. But this is probably a new feature and can hopefully added later.
Exactly so!
Players should always have: a host of Meaningful Choices, and Alternative Paths to Victory (or intermediate goals)!
In this realm of Champions (Sovereign and heros) versus Soldiers (trained units), players should have the ability to strategize and play along conventional military lines (relying primarily on trained units) OR along Fantasy game lines (relying primarily on Champions) OR along some appealing/plausible/feasible combination of the two.
Having trained units that evolve, in the course of the game, by increasing from 3 to 5 to 7 to 9 soldiers is just one more way of providing that delightful variety of playing choices. Of course, it DOES all come down to gettng the balance RIGHT. If Stardock tries; but simply can not get the balance right, then they can abandon having trained units that grow in size. But if they can get the balance right in this realm, it adds to the game ...
I do think that King Hobbit makes a good point, that in a perfect world (well ... a perfect game), it would be even better if we could Retro-fit older trained units, to increase the older ones in size, when the newer training technologies are unlocked, which permit larger formations.
I think that one area of combat that is missing from FE that might bring some balance to the quantity vs quality balance involved in soldiers vs champions is having your surroundings matter in battle. It should matter that your unit has X allies nearby and Y enemies. It should matter if you can get attackers on either side of an enemy and flank him. Currently, where you move your units in combat matters very little, so long as you can attack. If being surrounded reduced your defense, or attacking without moving worked differently than if you moved and then attacked, combat might be more interesting than simply 1.) get up next to an enemy 2.) Hit each other until someone dies.
But then when you add members to the squad, how do you explain them keeping their experience level? Say you have a level 10 3-member squad which you upgrade to a 9-member squad, you have effectively tripled the squad's power, but those new members start at level 10. So in the end it might, again, come to the balance, so that an early unit which has gathered much experience and is powerful already, may not be made even more powerful by increasing its size. Considering this, I think this mechanic is fine as it is now, otherwise you could have massively overpowered units.
Now you could make the point that the same thing should apply when a squad loses members, and when healed, and members magically reappear, the squad maintains the same experience level. But reducing the experience of a squad to compensate for new members would only add empty complexity to the game, which is a fantasy game, not a realistic military simulation. Games like Hearts of Iron 3 do reduce the overall experience of a combat unit when being reinforced to compensate for recruits' inexperience, but it is certainly not the case to add this kind of complexity to FE.
I'm not against differing groups sizes per say and I do agree with what you say here but the way they're implemented atm does way more harm than good imho.
Because of the attack value stacking you get huge power leaps between different sizes and weapon tiers which doesn't scale well and is a balancing nightmare, even more so when you throw in champions/single units.
The only way I see different squad sizes really working is something like this:
Instead of a 4 unit group with 10 attack per unit having a combined attack of 40, it should have 4 attacks of 10 (each unit's attack is calculated separately). Combat-wise, not much would change. All these individual attacks would still be condensed into a single attack move/animation, only the combat formula would change. This way you could always balance a single weapon piece vs a single armour piece instead of attack values getting the crazy x3, x6, x9 scaling vs. x1 armour value. This would especially benefit group vs. single unit balancing I think.
With units in a group doing individual attacks, larger groups would still have the advantage (more attacks) but things would scale much more reasonably/gradually without the high spikes in attack power. Each separate attack could be dodged and each would also get a separate chance to be a critical and their combined "damage done" values would combine to provide the final damage result. In case of high armour values more attacks would also produce more *clinks* thus increasing the minimum damage done and providing better scaling between weaker/stronger units.
Of course, some overall rebalancing would be needed, especially in regards to champions, but it would be a big improvement imo.
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