[Discussion] Behind the Scenes: Battle Redesign

[Heymrdiedier]

maybe combat could be a lot better, if all our units had +damage agains the ones they are good at (and no damage reduction), but enemy units only get damagereduction to the ones they have good defense for, but no damage increase against the others.
That way the trangle can stay but the slaughtering wouldnt be so bad as it is now. Now if you need to kill 1 enemy with a certain unit because only that one can kill it, but they enemy has a positive bonus against that one unit you need to use, its a suicide unit.

 

[DeletedUser]

I hope the devs have statistics of the number of fights done (and won) before the new battle system compared to the number of fights done now ? I'm sure that you will see a drastic decrease.

I managed to win some fights at the start when the enemy consisted only out of 2 different types but now I get my ass kicked (tournament, round 5). Fights against 3 different types are almost impossible to win, the same is true for fights against 2 or more squads of enchantresses. For now I quit fighting and see what will happen.

 

[CrazyWizard]

you can simply compare tournament point before and after. I just posted this pic on the dutch forum

pretty much tells all u need to know.
but I am sure this is there intention to limit the knowledge points from tournaments

 

[DeletedUser]

I think they want to limit the runes, which is why no one will be able to win any fights on lvl 6. It is a clear ploy to force players to spend money buying runes. they tell you: you can only win fights if you have all military wonders maxed out, but to do that you need runes. since you can't win runes anymore, you are forced to buy them

 

[DeletedUser]

lately one of us underlined the demographics on the live servers : many retired people;
these people are generally well to do; not rich, mind you, but they have that extra cash that they can spend on "small pleasures", such as a nice online game
it is time to admit it, Innogames !
Elvenar is nothing but a cash cow
at the time when mature games like FoE are happily giving out diamonds in all sectors of the game (quests, guild expeditions, wishing wells, and even that province on the campaign map), other games like Elvenar are designed so that players with little tactics are tempted to lean towards the dark side and spend money on some more building space, or on that awesome-looking culture building that will be outdated when the next guest race cometh;
I have nothing against that, you know, Innogames is perfectly entitled to make a game that is engineered to maximise their income, I'm fine with that;

but please, pretty please with sugar on top, do not make it THAT obvious ....

I didn't get any diamonds in FoE. Won some small amount of medals... to get 1 expansion. Next one ~500 medals. Unreachable for ages... Got no special buildings from event. Couldn't even negotiate. Got plundered all the time... I would had to sit 24/7 to gain any coins/supplies.

Elvenar clearly have no idea about "balancing." Except when it comes to:

Yes you are right this "game" is about exploiting the old and/or ill people.

 

[DeletedUser1250]

Thank you Muf-Muf for the long reply and explanation you gave.

I want to give some feedback.
I like the speed of the barracks. I like the way the squads increase.
The fact that the barracks couldn't train troops all night anymore bothered me first, but given the speed of the training during the day, I can live with that. I have 3 armories and rebuild the dwarven bulwark, so that should do it for now. It is not bothering me anymore.

I also like it that we will get new troops. Sounds exciting, can't wait to see them. I understand the new system makes it possible to introduce more new troops in the future and that sounds nice.

I am not happy with hearing that I went too far with scouting. I have done 337 provinces so far and of course I noticed the scouting times are very long and of course I noticed fighting became very hard, but how could I know I went too far? I know now the scouting times shouldn't be much longer than a day, which helps me for a smaller human account that is in the fairy chapter, but won't help me with my big towns. There is no way to undo this, the only thing I can do is just take a break from scouting. But how do I get more expansions then? We will get more guestraces and of course I want to expand my city. And of course I don't want to buy them and of course the expansions from the tech tree are never enough I don't need an answer to this, it is just bothering me.
I think it should have been impossible from the beginning to go too far, for example by making the scouting costs for higher rings much higher, so the scouting is too expensive for the storage of the main hall and then give a much higher reduction with every advanced scouts research to compensate it. Or block higher rings and unlock them with a new chapter. If it would have been that way from the beginning, then no one would have been this far and we wouldn't have known better. Now I feel I got punished for something I didn't know. But ok, this is how it is, we have to deal with it.
If I stop scouting for a few chapters, then I will lose a part of the fun, but ok, I might just accept that.
My question about this is: I have done 337 provinces, which is too much, but for which chapter would 337 be a good number? Or another question, I finished the orc chapter, how many provinces would be reasonable to have done? The minimum to start the orc chapter is 160, but what would be a good maximum at the end so we would not to be too far ahead? I am not the only one who has done 300+, so can you tell me this?

I am not complaining about the hard fights in the provinces, because I understand what causes it.
I am also not complaining about losses in a fight, even when it is a lot when fighting manual. Losing troops is part of the fights and the speed of the barracks is good enough for me to keep fighting.

But something I don't like is the change in the tournaments.
I understand the % that increase with every level and I am glad to know the size depends on the squad size and the tech tree and not on the provinces I have done.
I also understand the time of the overpowered golem and sorceress is gone. Fine.
But why did the number of troops change? Why is it not 5 against 5 squads anymore? That was something I liked about the tournaments, it was differet from the province fights. Now we often face more than 5 troops and for a province it is ok, but for a tournament I don't like that.

I have tried a lot in the tournaments, but it seems now some fights are impossible to win. And I am talking about fighting manually, trying some fights more than 5 times in different combinations. I got totally stuck in level 5, province 3. 6 fights I can't win, no matter how hard I tried.
I could do province 1 and 2 on level 5 and 6, partly had to cater, but ok. But being stuck in level 5, province 3, that is not ok. If I have to cater 1 or 2 fights in a province, well, I might just do that if I want to continue badly, but 6 in province 3? That is too much in my opinion.
The enchantress ll seems overpowered, killing often many of my units before I can even make a move.

I also don't like that all 6 levels in the tournament have the same units. It was only steinling, cerberus, war dog and enchantress in different combinations, level 2 and or 3. What happened with the archers, the priests and such?

 

[DeletedUser1232]

If I cannot win in a battle map because too hard fighting or too much expensive to negotiate it (I am 319 provinces), I cannot get expansions, so I cannot grow in the game, so it becomes more and more boring....

 

[DeletedUser1649]

Elvenar, to me, has become more about preparing for the next, big nerf rather than looking forward to the next chapter or update.

If you want players to become positive, then please stop giving us so many reasons to stay negative.

 

[DeletedUser651]

Elvenar, to me, has become more about preparing for the next, big nerf rather than looking forward to the next chapter or update.

They told you what that is, if you read closely. Negotiating will be become impossible for players who are past the orc chapter too. They tested this on the other group of people with the orc requirement, and so many people said "this didn't affect me, so I don't care". Now they know they can stop progress with impunity. So, the next move is to stop our progress too. Negotiate all you can now. I can promise you that is coming. Muf already said that it would solve all their problems if they could stop us from doing anything on the world map.

I cringed reading Anne's post. How cowed have they got us that players are actually apologizing for being "too far ahead"? Yeah, how dare we play the game? How could we? What got into us?

Try imagining how little space you would have to build a city if you followed their "ideal" play. Anne is about where I am scouting wise, which means we are twice as far as we should be. That means that we should not scout anything for a couple of YEARS before we are where we are supposed to be, or I don't know, whenever the devs get around to putting out the proper content for our strength.

Has it ever occurred to Inno that we are not too far ahead, but your devs are too far behind? We sit here waiting for months on end for new chapters.. The DEVS didn't put out enough content and that's why we are facing this. We SHOULD have had a lot more advanced scouts by now. We SHOULD have had a lot more squad size upgrades. WE are the ones who have been playing on crutches all this time. So the solution is to break our legs?

Talk about the dumbest solution I have ever seen! YOU created imbalances so to fix them you create more. Now, you have broken the wonder system (because getting runes is even more difficult now and it was miserable before), you have broken the feckless magic academy (no provinces means no relics means no spells), you have broken the fighting system (lol...you think you just made it a little tougher for the top players, rofl...just wait...no one could fight before because it was too hard for most people, you've killed it for all), players will walk out the door because whatever tiny bit of fun they managed to steal from you has now been snatched.

I will now sit back with a bucket of popcorn, chat with all my friends on facebook, and watch the carnage.

May you always get what you want!

 

[DeletedUser651]

@Muf-Muf, @Goryn , at any moderator, or any dev or Inno employee:

Question: You say we have scouted too far. None of us can send our scouts out before they are done scouting, therefore, you are saying that sending out scouts when they are done is wrong. So, how long are you expecting us to wait before we do send scouts out after they are done scouting? What is the "expected" amount of time that scouts should be idle before we can send them back out?

Please tell us, so we may understand your expectations.

 

[DeletedUser1250]

Having scouted so far was indeed the result of months waiting for new chapters. I have a smaller human town in the Dutch world that started about half a year ago. No waiting for that account. I am there in the fairy chapter, about 200 kp to go to the orcs. And I have done about 223 provinces there. Never have speed up the scout, but when the scout is done, I start scouting for the next province. And that's what I did here and on my elven account in the Dutch world too. Due to the waiting between the chapters, I got so far. Didn't go on vacation, didn't take a break, never thought it would not be ok to keep scouting.
And I don't want to get into the same situation again, so I want to know how to avoid it.
I guess I am not "too far" with that account, because I already decided to wait with ring 11 until I have reached the orcs.
Now I am wondering if ring 11 was meant for the orc chapter. Which means I should wait till the chapter after the next chapter before I continue with ring 13........that seems a very long time
To have scouting times that are about a day and being able to fight again in provinces, that might be worth it though, I don't know it yet.

 

[DeletedUser1549]

ok here is a question and no a complain
how i have sice 36 in the tonament and use sorceres II (9 in each slot) and the attack is (53-79) for each of them and the attack of the peloton shows (475-713) last time i checked 53*9=477 and 79*9=711 why this discrepancy? can some one please answer this?

and on a side note: it is gret that sorceres now have so much initiative (the greatest on the field) and the great bonus of -50% damange in 2 rounds (only if they last to use then again) but what good it does if you move them in your firt move ( maybe this is one reason automatic is no good) if they get in the middle of the field and get all the attack from all enemy units. better no to move them, then you question whjy did they give them so much initiative? (and they get all the enemy atention)

 

[DeletedUser283]

all is fine in the end
these changes in the battle system were introduced so that "combat mechanics get easier to understand for players"
I think we have understood it all perfectly : fights cannot be won .
(thanks a million to @benroq for the good laughs)

and now a player in our FS is taking a break from the game for an undefined period of time because the game is no fun anymore if fights are not in the picture, and will resort to knitting instead (true story)

 

[DeletedUser651]

Drinking game alert: when they release this on the live servers, watch the comments and take a drink every time you see a player say "I quit".

 

[DeletedUser283]

"this was not the right time to quit drinking"

 

[DeletedUser1463]

ok here is a question and no a complain
how i have sice 36 in the tonament and use sorceres II (9 in each slot) and the attack is (53-79) for each of them and the attack of the peloton shows (475-713) last time i checked 53*9=477 and 79*9=711 why this discrepancy? can some one please answer this?

This game uses percentages for damage range, bonuses and penalties.
The Sorceress II has an average damage of 66 and a range of +/- 20%.
So 1 unit will have 66 +/- 20% of 66 which results in a range of 52.8 - 79.2 which is rounded to 53 - 79.
9 units as in your example will have 9*66=594 +/- 20% of 594 which is a range of 475.2 - 712.8 which is rounded to 475 - 713.

 

[DeletedUser1549]

incredible knoledge, but where do we find out about this +/- 20% damage?

thak you for the info
i don;t find any info about a range!!

where is this info\/

 

[DeletedUser1345]

Has it ever occurred to Inno that we are not too far ahead, but your devs are too far behind? We sit here waiting for months on end for new chapters.. The DEVS didn't put out enough content and that's why we are facing this. We SHOULD have had a lot more advanced scouts by now. We SHOULD have had a lot more squad size upgrades. WE are the ones who have been playing on crutches all this time. So the solution is to break our legs?

Please no, this topic is taboo, The solution was already introduced. Super slow productions with the guest race. I am resolved to never complain about the lack of new content. Please join me on this. Solutions are always draconian. Look at our new combat system. It was said that it would be simple, and I took that to mean "easier" and not as in "simple minded."

Muf-Muf had a long message for us. Not one part of it is good news. Sometimes terrain helps, and now there are threats that we will lose other advantages. I just assumed that you knew, battles have often been at a disadvantage in some ways, but not in others. Province fights were against huge squads, but your units were stronger. The enemy was balanced by acting for the most part predictably. You could often turn terrain to your advantage. If you are seeking to take away any advantages, while increasing the disadvantages, it will not make the game more challenging. It makes it annoying. Units are weaker. I have used Treant III against the war dogs.

 

[CrazyWizard]

Ok I finally figured this nonsense out.

This imbalance in scouting never existed and is clearly nonsense
Let me explain, some moron at innogames lets call him "mr salesman" decided that there should be more expansions for sales so he can improve his sales performance.

this change was made at version 1.11

• Premium city expansions are no longer tied to your Main Hall level - the maximum number of this type you can have in your city is 33

There is simply no need for the 14 additional expansions that mr salesman just added to the game.

so now mr salesman decided there is a balance issue that should rapidly be adressed, it started with the introduction of the orks and the blockade on the world map at negations.
and the impossible combat is the second adjustment they are making to make sure there is actual demand for that decision mr salesman made.

So the crap that muf muf is releasing on us, that we were never supposed to be this far on the world map is an outright lie.
We were actually supposed to be this far. that is up till the moment mr salesman decided to add the 14 extra expansions.

ONLY THEN, there was a problem because they added something to the game that did not have a market, and all these modifications are plainly based on creating a market for something there was never a demand for.

It's like introducing a car with square wheels to the market (which no one will buy) and then modifying all the existing roads to favor square wheeled cars (creating a market) who cares that there are 10 billion cars with round wheels. let them all buy my square wheeled car or have them screwed over.

 

[DeletedUser]

There is no such thing as scouted too far/too much!
There shouldn't be any bottlenecks regarding that.

If you want us "keep on playing" you need to make that players to be able to finish at least one province per day otherwise is not really playing, but collecting stuff. Scouting times shouldn't be greater then 24h.

Or maybe create a cliff and we fall off... since is a flat world...