[Discussion] Behind the Scenes: Battle Redesign

[DeletedUser1596]

..little balancing..

Human Barbarians are supposed to be specialised against archers and mages, but they have no resistances and they always take one or two (depending on terrain) shots before reaching their target. By that time they are usually dead or near death and suffering from weakening effects. Wouldn't it be better to swap their attack and defense bonuses?

 

[Marindor]

Say, is the battle pentagon even mentioned anywhere in the actual game?

Not really in the game, except for the tooltips where you can see which units have bonuses against which other types of course. Besides the forum announcement, we will also put it in our Wiki. Is there any place in the game where it would fit as well, in your opinion?

 

[Deleted User - 60107]

Not really in the game, except for the tooltips where you can see which units have bonuses against which other types of course. Besides the forum announcement, we will also put it in our Wiki. Is there any place in the game where it would fit as well, in your opinion?

I can think of a couple of places:
- The Barracks (and other buildings for training units)
- The Army Setup screen before a battle

It could be something similar to the AW help:


Have a similar yellow ? button on the Barracks/Training Grounds/Mercenary Camp screen (this one: ) and on the Army Setup screen (this one: ). It will look something like this (crappy edit for demonstration purposes only):


And when a player clicks the button a help screen opens with several tabs that explain:
- the basics of combat (this might be a good place for the combat pentagon)
- how to train units in the Barracks and other similar buildings (and anything else related to unit training)
- how to select your army before combat - this one should definitely both mention and show the fact we can have multiple tabs for units from different buidings. Also, this one MUST explain how units are ordered in combat, as this has always been one of the most confusing parts
- how to actually do battles (moving, attacking, making use of unit skills...). This too might be a good place for the combat pentagon
- anything else that I forgot to mention here

Something like that.

 

[Marindor]

Thank you!

 

[DeletedUser1526]

I still have hope for the future, but its small and keeps decreasing every time i see an 'official' announcement

How sad is this - instead to look forward for new updates we read announcements with fear what next did they ruin and nerf.

 

[DeletedUser1095]

Besides the forum announcement, we will also put it in our Wiki. Is there any place in the game where it would fit as well, in your opinion?

A series of tutorial-style quests to let us all learn how the developers expect us to fight would be great, especially if we can revisit it when we want to.

 

[DeletedUser651]

I have 327 provinces cleared. I am too far ahead to win battles. Ok. So how many races of squad size upgrades and advanced scouts will it take before I am not too far ahead? Seriously. I am actually asking. If I stop dead in my tracks right now, when would I be "caught up"?

 

[DeletedUser]

Alright, one final feedback from me concerning the battle system. I have here on the beta site a very small Elven city. When update 1.15 came, I was midway in chapter II, couldn’t fight anymore because my troops were reduced from 36 to 15, couldn’t build anymore because I had no room and my culture was dangerously low. I was forced to go back in the research tree to complete the battle researches that were moved to an earlier spot. With a lot of frustration, I hung in there. It took me awhile to get back on track, but last week I was finally there. I even manage to win a fight again. But then I got hit by update 1.16. The enemies became a lot stronger again, so again no change of winning a battle. I’m again send back in the research tree to again research another battle unit (the helldogs), and my much anticipated city expansion, which I nearly researched has to be used for the freaking doghouse . So again I stuck in the citybuilding aspect of the game. I’m sorry but this is really the straw that broke the camel’s back for me. There’s really no point for me in continuing here, because I want to build a city, not constantly trying to catch up with the battlesystem.

On the Dutch server I have a huge Elven city (researching Orc AW at the moment), I’ve clearly scouted too much provinces (335), so it’s impossible to fight there too. That’s less of a worry, because I have more than enough goods to negotiate, and I already have 4 expansions waiting in line for when (if ever) I get more room to place them. So I will probably keep going there, mainly because I’m looking forward to the arrival of the Woodelves. There I can keeping working on my city, and basically ignore the battlesystem. But for a beginning player (as I am here), this game is becoming impossible, and that saddens me. Because no new players will ultimately mean that Elvenar is destined to die a slow death.

 

[Dony]

there is still a possibility to negotiate all provinces, which majority doing anyway, especially early in the game where its too cheap

 

[DeletedUser1681]

*snip snip go the scissors* as I take the bits that I really find familiar:

...(Beta) I was forced to go back in the research tree to complete the battle researches that were moved to an earlier spot...
...(after next update) I’m again send back in the research tree to again research another battle unit... (*insert some more angry muttering about a doghouse*).
...I want to build a city, not constantly trying to catch up with the battlesystem.

Oh how I've hated going back one time after another - especially because for me it seems I'm doing it for nothing. I found out that I am not alone using auto-fight. A lot of people in my local server have used that and so far none have succeeded in fights. And although I do understand that everything takes some time I do not understand why it (auto-battle) was published before it was ready to cope with the fights... and not just here but live servers too. I've really started suspecting that some update in the not-so-distant future it (the auto-option) will be gone.

I was lucky to have started a couple of weeks earlier than Ritsel (and battle update) and I went straight for my local server system - first auto-fighting then an auto-fight negotiating combo. And had just about gotten my economy up and running when the battle update hit us. Now I've been watching the feedback here and just negotiated. I'm training troops as I go but don't feel it's very likely to try and use them anytime soon.

...(local server) That’s less of a worry, because I have more than enough goods to negotiate...
... So I will probably keep going there, mainly because I’m looking forward to the arrival of the Woodelves. There I can keeping working on my city, and basically ignore the battlesystem.

Ditto

But for a beginning player (as I am here), this game is becoming impossible, and that saddens me. Because no new players will ultimately mean that Elvenar is destined to die a slow death.

Someone mentioned something about this being a game targeted at future players and current players being a lost cause. But where do those future players come from (?) if all the players that are starting around now walk away feeling like they've hit a stone wall, current players don't really feel like you've succeeded in your renewed system... a cpl of generations of players lost right there.

 

[DeletedUser1095]

Personally I never use auto-fight except to finish a battle I've done the heavy lifting in by hand - I learned from FoE that Inno's autofight AI is maddeningly obtuse, presumably on purpose. So it surprises me that so many people use it here even though Elvenar is (was?) supposed to be a city-building game, not a fighting game. But anyway!

I have 327 provinces cleared. I am too far ahead to win battles. Ok. So how many races of squad size upgrades and advanced scouts will it take before I am not too far ahead? Seriously. I am actually asking. If I stop dead in my tracks right now, when would I be "caught up"?

I asked the same question somewhere up there, and am still hoping for an official reply.

 

[Marindor]

Hi guys!

For your question on in which chapter you'll be caught up with X provinces: We don't have a concrete answer to that yet, sorry. Of course the current feedback about the new battle system is also taken into account with that but other than that, there's nothing specific we can announce about this yet.

Just to let you all know: Thanks to your feedback, the first unit rebalances will take place in version 1.17 . When we have a complete list of all the changes (there are quite a lot and some adjustments are still being done), we will announce them in our Release Notes that come with that version! When it's released, please keep providing us with feedback. Especially the concrete examples of battles that should be winnable but are not, are very helpful! Thank you for that!

 

[DeletedUser651]

That's ok. No rush.

Our entire fellowship on the US server has agreed not to buy any diamonds until we can win fights again. That might be tough because we are all top players. But, if things will get rebalanced, then they will buy again. We can wait.

 

[Marindor]

Yes we are aware of these kind of "player actions". It won't make much of a difference though, because if these changes weren't necessary, we wouldn't have made them in the first place. Turning them back is not an option, so the most constructive thing to do, would be to just keep providing us with good feedback like you're all doing here on Beta, so we can finetune the system. The better this is done, the quicker the balancing will be done as well. Thanks to you the first changes are already being made and this is a process that will take a while anyway so thank you for all your help so far, we are grateful for that.

 

[Deleted User - 60107]

@Marindor

I have a question, but first some info:
Total scouted provinces: 25
Completed provinces: 17
Provinces that are scouted but not yet completed: 8
Of those 8 provinces 7 give me 3 points per encounter and one gives me 4 points.

Now look at this screenshot:


Notice how enemy squad size is already slightly bigger than mine? 69 is the max squad size for chapter II and the enemy already has a squad size of 71 when it is 5 on 5. I still need to scout 5 more provinces (since I need 30 for next Chapter). Isn't it too soon for the enemy to start surpassing me? Especially when the terrain for that particular battle favors the enemy:


Most of my Archers can't hit anyone on first turn and there's limited space for movement on my side of the field.

I still won:


But Archers have 50% Defense bonus against Heavy Melee and there were no Heavy Ranged units. I'm now going to try another 5 on 5 in the same province:


Let's see how this one goes...
EDIT: Slightly better terrain - one group of Archers could hit a group of Knights on first turn, another group of Archers could hit a group of Cannoneers (which is exactly what I chose to do):


End result:

One whole squad lost and over a half of another squad lost. Most of the losses are due to the Heavy Ranged units and their bonus against Light Ranged - and all other encounters in this province include at least 1 squad of Heavy Ranged.

Remember: This is the FIRST province in this ring that I have scouted, so the rest will be harder...

 

[Dony]

I think we can safely say that times were we won with minimal losses are gone

 

[DeletedUser1548]

It won't make much of a difference

Good to know.

 

[ophion]

So much for the promise early on in the game that Elvenar would never go the way of other city building games where fighting was a large part of it. This one was supposed to be different and we all loved it because it made a nice change to have a city building game that didn't require having to fight.
All this unrest right now is because of the introduction of new battle systems and problems caused because of it...and now it's a requirement to have to build orcs and battle our way through it to continue. I used to love the peacefulness of this game where I used to come and relax but it's just going the way of all the others now and I really don't know if I want to continue if it carries on like this.(

 

[Deleted User - 60107]

Another battle in the same Marble province, this time against 2 squads of Cannoneers (Heavy Ranged):







Not as bad as the last battle since there were just 2 enemy squads and I could hit both on first turn, killing 4 with each hit.

Hopefully the other provinces in this ring won't be much harder than this...

 

[DeletedUser1095]

Yes we are aware of these kind of "player actions". It won't make much of a difference though, because if these changes weren't necessary, we wouldn't have made them in the first place. Turning them back is not an option, so the most constructive thing to do, would be to just keep providing us with good feedback like you're all doing here on Beta, so we can finetune the system. The better this is done, the quicker the balancing will be done as well. Thanks to you the first changes are already being made and this is a process that will take a while anyway so thank you for all your help so far, we are grateful for that.

... The changes were needed because of bad decisions the design/development team made earlier, right? Can you ask them if they've considered apologising to us for making such a mess of the game we were trying to play in good faith? Offering some token of esteem and thanks for our loyalty despite all the frustration they've caused? Something like that could go a long way toward helping us feel like the designers see us as valued beta testers and not as adversaries.