The great feedback thread

A limit in unit kill diversity?

Lol...how limit the swarm of same unit type kill diversity?

Limit help diversity.

My point is - that when you need to put some limitations (at least heavy limits - last one 5:3:1 was resonable but still was a limit) you simply agree that some units are better than others - especially the cheaper ones.


In first Version of open Beta there was no swarms at all thx to cheap elites and some anti swarm tactics that was working quite nice.

Now - swarms are annoying because of:

- random Pickups (more units you have - higher the chances that pop up appear close to your unit - and you can easily sacrifice a cheap unit for capturing popup at enemy side of the battlefield.
- big controll zones - current controll zones are rather about swarming the centre than fighting over it.

and current sparklings are better fighters than still terrible swordsmans So sparks are far better Vs Skellys than Swordsmans ;P

New version realy sux
To be specific, the thing that it all depends one one super unit... just kills all the fun of the game.

Was ranked 1st few weeks ago, playing almoust all day , but now its the end from me. Was fun till it lasted.

A limit in unit kill diversity?

Lol...how limit the swarm of same unit type kill diversity?

Limit help diversity.

Little surprised this needs explaining but I'll do my best.

The current swarm is not because of build's its because of mechanics. Nothing is stopping many of us who aren't gaming the mechanics for a win with playing with different units and armies.

That said if we limit it to 2 of any unit (all profiles included) then you are going to end up with

2 Swordsmen
2 Sparklings
2 Lions
2 anything.

Every single army will look like this since even with the AP available you don't have a choice. Pretty much every army will become 2 of every cheapest unit. This also means you won't be able to play to many heroes strengths since you cannot field the units they need.

Hence build diversity killed.

If the limit is set high enough as other have said, 3-4, we get the option to build with variety, But you do address some of the swarm problem. Mechanics would still need to be addressed.

This is very basic sorry since I don't have time to give you more examples.

I finally had time to play a few matches today and unfortunately I have to say that, as it stands now, the game seems to be unbalanced in certain aspects:

- Heroes are almost completely unbalanced: e.g the Golem is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to kill. I've had my Golem completely surrounded by enemy units with exhausting touch on it and in the end the enemy still had to give up the game! (moreover, if he could kill it, I had also 8 morbid puppets near it to use his Black Hearth ability and get it back to full 60 HP!). On the other end, the Worg is extremely weak, especially respect to the Blood Predator, some more HP can't keep it around for long since with its low DOD 7 and PAR 8 it is ALWAYS hit, especially by Lion archers.

- Random spawn of elixirs each turn makes victory based on luck in most games: e.g. my enemy was with only his Golem while I still had 4 archers full HP and 1 Golem, however we were 2-3 for him, he won the INI for four turns consecutively, collected 4 elixirs that spawned near it and I could do nothing (only harassing it with my 1 HP arrows and my Golem and gaining the points for area superiority).

- A bunch of Lion archers + 2 Sparklings to collect elixirs around are impossible to be approached without becoming pincushions (if you're not a Acheron Golem)...

- Giving 4 points out of 7 for killing the enemy hero means end game almost always.

- Nothing to say at the moment on the Killed Outright hits, since in about 7 games they happened only a couple of times.


On the positive side, I found that having a commander unit may be very interesting indeed, however much more balancing is needed.


A couple of ideas I've also seen around that may improve the game are the following ones:

- Increase the number of elixir required to 10.

- Eliminate the random spawn and substitute it with a spawn where a unit has died (not voluntary destroyed, also not summoned units): this will solve many problems encountered in the current version and make the archers/running units compositions less dominant, since killing the enemy units in the opponent field will probably let the enemy get the elixir: you have the advantage of killing the enemy from a safe distance, but he gets the elixirs! So the archers can be back to be the supporting/weakening units they should be and more strategy comes back in the game (And it also make more sense that the elixirs are carried by the enemy units and do not pop around the map! And if the enemy unit auto-blows up, so its elixir is also destroyed)

- Don't give +4 Elixirs for killing the enemy hero, give instead +2 elixir points to the side that kill him and -2 to the side that has it killed, it seems much more balanced and won't end the game immediately.

- All the Heroes should be immune to Killed Outright -> they should get only a critical hit instead of the Killed Outright (Sacred Armor can immunize to the critical hits).

Hope some suggestions may be interesting for you to try, have a nice weekend,

Almanro

PS: Bugs!
- I used Powerful Swipe with my Golem but it didn't work (or at least it didn't seem to work).
- I had Exhausting Touch on a Morbid Puppet who died at the beginning of the turn for the -10 DAM and Exhausting Touch was not passed on. When I recreated the Morbid Puppet with my Necro, it had the Exhausting Touch on it.

Eliminate the random spawn and substitute it with a spawn where a unit has died

I had thought about this earlier as well but came up with the following problem.

This would penalize any army that is ranged based and it moves the meta to a few strong units. The reason for this is the fewer units you have the less potential Elixir points there are for your opponent to get. I do agree though it is a step in the right direction.

-----

I was talking to people and another way would be:

1. Have Elixir spawn closer to the middle of the map. This would eliminate the whole always spawning in your opponents side problem. It also creates more drive to engage units in combat.

2. Unit activation ends when contacting a Elixir. This means no more snatch and grabs, there is real risk of using a fragile unit to grab up an elixir.

3. Have the unit drop the Elixir into a random adjacent square when it takes a wound. So full health Lion grabs up an Elixir but take a critical hit and drops into Light wounds and the Elixir drops onto the ground again. To be clear this is not damage this is when it moves into a new tier of wounds. Full HP -> Light -> Serious -> Critical.

No one option is going to solve the current mechanics it really needs to be a combination of them.

Eliminate the random spawn and substitute it with a spawn where a unit has died

This would penalize any army that is ranged based and it moves the meta to a few strong units. The reason for this is the fewer units you have the less potential Elixir points there are for your opponent to get. I do agree though it is a step in the right direction.

Well, you should however consider that at the moment the elixir bonus for the map dominance is given to the player with more units, independently from their AP value, so using few units will get less elixirs from the map and also they can be easily surrounded and killed. While using range units would be useful also with the new rule, since you can weaken the enemy before he can come near you and get the elixirs from killing your ranged ones (that should be the job of the archers, not completely dominating all games from far away as they are doing now that we can see almost in every company from 4 to 8 archers...). Moreover, I said that when a unit dies an elixir pops up that BOTH sides can get, so having less units will give less elixir from the map dominance aspect and also collecting elixirs from the killed enemy won't be so easy if you're outnumbered (for example, many other are possible, 4 Wolfen against 7 Alahan, after the Wolfen have finished their turn in the melee (usually when the melee starts you don't pass anymore), one Alahan unit dies from a counter and the remaining ones can pick up his elixir, or if the Wolfen killed a second unit after the first one, at least one elixir will be around to be picked up (you can't pick more than a single elixir per turn with the same unit)).

Regarding your ideas, I like especially the third one, while the second one is nice but won't solve the ranged unit domination issue and the first one won't solve the problem of a heavy unit like the Golem taking all the elixirs without problems, instead they will make the INI d6 throw much more important than now.

Yeah to be honest nothing I've seen so far is going to address this fully without testing to refine it. Currently it seems to seesaw.

It will take a combination of some sort to start finding that balance. I suspect there is no perfect combo but more a spot of where it can be worked around and lived with as a minor annoyance or breaks a game once in a while.

I'm still of the opinion that unit profiles are an issue for later, right now there are mechanics that need to be tweaked to bring us to a point where we can test how the profiles play. There is no unit profile that is going to bring balance when all the elixirs spawn in your opponents back field.

Yeah to be honest nothing I've seen so far is going to address this fully without testing to refine it. Currently it seems to seesaw.

It will take a combination of some sort to start finding that balance. I suspect there is no perfect combo but more a spot of where it can be worked around and lived with as a minor annoyance or breaks a game once in a while.

I'm still of the opinion that unit profiles are an issue for later, right now there are mechanics that need to be tweaked to bring us to a point where we can test how the profiles play. There is no unit profile that is going to bring balance when all the elixirs spawn in your opponents back field.

+1 completely agree

- Heroes are almost completely unbalanced: e.g the Golem is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to kill. I've had my Golem completely surrounded by enemy units with exhausting touch on it and in the end the enemy still had to give up the game! (moreover, if he could kill it, I had also 8 morbid puppets near it to use his Black Hearth ability and get it back to full 60 HP!). On the other end, the Worg is extremely weak, especially respect to the Blood Predator, some more HP can't keep it around for long since with its low DOD 7 and PAR 8 it is ALWAYS hit, especially by Lion archers.

It's funny because the Worg is pretty much the Golem's only hard counter. Allied units Immune to fear and with rising moon he can outright kill fairly reliably. Black Heart becomes detrimental when the Golem is losing all that health from one blow.