[Discussion] Behind the Scenes: Battle Redesign

[DeletedUser629]

So basically, the fights will still be balanced in favour of the enemy.
So, you needed to change the fighting system to be able to add new units and make updating them easier, and instead of using this opportunity to bring some balance to the game, increasing the chance most players would actually enjoy fighting in this game, you used it to devaluate the troops we have managed to accumulate, changed the units so we all have to learn how to fight from scratch again, and still kept the numbers against us.

And you honestly think you will make fighting more attractive with these changes?
I can see loads of players that took months to learn how to barely scrape by in fights due to the overwhelming odds just give up on fighting altogether, once they realise all the troops they have are worth a 10th and that they have to learn everything again.
Good fighters will still manage, because they always did, but I thought you were trying to make it easier for the less experienced players... i guess I was wrong, you were actually trying to make it harder.

We understand your concern, but this will have a positive effect on fighting in general. Yes, you will have to change your fighting style, but overall, fighting will become easier.

One example. As a human i really don't like elixer provinces, because all the enemies i hate are gathered in one province. Now, with the new system, my heavy melee units who are currently useless vs cannoneers and golems will have the upper hand making it easier for me to conquer those provinces. I will of course do lots of testing for you guys, and since my vacation is coming up, i will have plenty of time to create the most epic battle guide ever.

I'm a hardcore fighter, i love it, and i love to help players become better fighters so they're going to love it too

 

[Dony]

We understand your concern, but this will have a positive effect on fighting in general. Yes, you will have to change your fighting style, but overall, fighting will become easier.

One example. As a human i really don't like elixer provinces, because all the enemies i hate are gathered in one province. Now, with the new system, my heavy melee units who are currently useless vs cannoneers and golems will have the upper hand making it easier for me to conquer those provinces. I will of course do lots of testing for you guys, and since my vacation is coming up, i will have plenty of time to create the most epic battle guide ever.

I'm a hardcore fighter, i love it, and i love to help players become better fighters so they're going to love it too

It may be good for human's paladins, but elves treant die before they reach cannoneers, either by them or other sources which have bonus for heavy melee.
I dont see myself going with treant against cannoneers or golems, i would rather use sorceress with debuff and tank them, i dont believe that treant will be any good against heavy ranged mainly due their movement unless movements will be changed aswell, that would make at least small sense.

 

[Muf-Muf]

So basically, the fights will still be balanced in favour of the enemy.

Not necessarily, no. If you are very advanced on the world map, you may find encounters tough to beat (just like it is now), but as you progress in the research tree and through the chapters, you will have bigger and better armies to fight with as well, so that should even it out in the end.

And you honestly think you will make fighting more attractive with these changes?

Short answer? Yes.

I can see loads of players that took months to learn how to barely scrape by in fights due to the overwhelming odds just give up on fighting altogether, once they realise all the troops they have are worth a 10th and that they have to learn everything again.

Yes, it will be a challenge to get accomodated to the new system, that much is certain. Everybody will have to adjust at first, but we still believe that this is very well doable, and we are also here to assist where necessary, of course. This is also why we are already sharing the upcoming changes now: so that you all can get some insights in the system, before we let you face it ingame.

It would be nice if say your total combat troup size is 1000, you can choose to put that in 1 troup of 1000, or choose 2 groups of 500, or 8 troups of 125 etc as long as the total soldiers on the combat field doesnt exceed the max.

For examples some battles have 2 enemies, i dont need 5 troups to fight them, 2 would be enough, but agains 8 enemies, maybe id like to use 10.

That is an interesting idea for sure, but it's not something we have been considering to implement just yet. Maybe in the future? Who knows. Either way, it is not part of the current battle redesign plans.

 

[DeletedUser1345]

I am wondering why the cannoner is in the chart. Is this part of the third chapter to this adjustment? The cannoner will be made a human unit so that this balanced system is not skewed against the human fighters who otherwise have no heavy ranged unit?

 

[DeletedUser651]

Yes, it will be a challenge to get accomodated to the new system, that much is certain. Everybody will have to adjust at first, but we still believe that this is very well doable, and we are also here to assist where necessary, of course.

If this new system is going to be a challenge for those of us who do fight, how will anyone who doesn't fight now be able to understand it? The system as it is now is way too difficult for most people because the fights are so horribly difficult when you are new. You take days to build up an army and in 5 minutes it is done. Then people give up forever. Or they try one or two more times and then give up forever.

I hope this new system fixes that fatal flaw because if it doesn't then nothing else matters. This battle system isn't like a video game where you get defeated and can retry the battle again and again and again and again learn from your defeat. It takes too long to build up your armies. By the time they are built back up you forgot everything you learned from before. That's why no one bothers to fight.

Plus, there is no video tutorial. You need to walk people through the system. What moves where? How do you move a piece? Why can't I aim at some enemies? How do I aim? Why do they move out of turn? What do those numbers mean? What is a hit point? These are some of the basic questions I see all day long. We need a very basic tutorial. We have needed a beginner's guide for forever and I finally got one going along with another player on the US forum. It would be good if Inno put together a tutorial explaining the entire fighting system.

I can say that I spend 8 hours a day doing tournament fights and I haven't bothered to fight a regular province in a year because of the insanely heavy losses. Why would I lose all those troops in one fight in a single sector of one province? If I lose one battle it takes me forever to build up that army again. Meanwhile, one battle's worth of troop losses would have been enough troops to fight an entire 5 day tournament with. So I can either attempt one battle in a regular province or complete 500 battles in a tournament. I am not exaggerating. I mean seriously, 500 battles (or more) vs one.

I guess we will see. I have no clue what that chart means or how any of this is going to work.

Has anyone at Inno ever done any testing with their games in real time with real people and asked for feedback? Or do you just listen to people gripe on the forums? It would be very useful for Inno to hear how people respond to the battle system in real time. For example, after 200 battles in two days of the tournament where I had the most fun, I am cursing at this stupid game facing the level 3 battles in this tournament that I just faced. It isn't enjoyable at all. They completely suck. I went from having a ball to hating battles.

Try to keep in mind that a lot of your players are people who are retired. Ask your grandmother if she can understand the battle system before you release it.

 

[DeletedUser1250]

I am wondering why the cannoner is in the chart. Is this part of the third chapter to this adjustment? The cannoner will be made a human unit so that this balanced system is not skewed against the human fighters?

I am counting 13 units and we now only have 10? So I guess that is a new one.

 

[DeletedUser]

Short question:

Will we still be able to fight Tournaments weekly and win the same number/levels of Provinces?

 

[Dony]

Short question:

Will we still be able to fight Tournaments weekly and win the same number/levels of Provinces?

I dont think that this will be a problem, we will just get more options with different setups.
1 of the reason why they making rebalancing is that some units are too strong and we are using it alsmot everywhere, like sorceress III on 80% of fights, after change we could use more types of units. We will still be able to use sorceress III everywhere but they will be at risk of dying sooner.
I am looking forward to archers now, since they have bonus to paladins/priest/sorceress in tournament, which are quite annoying.
The game will shift from defense play to who can nuke opponent faster or nuke them before they nuke you, lower HP means we will have more garanted looses, but we could train them faster.

I cant wait to try this new changes.

regarding releasing this in 3 packages. I hope that you will close tournament, release first patch, then second then third and then open tournament again. Something like first all our units, second new units and military building and last tournament rebalance.

 

[DeletedUser607]

so, essentially it's rock paper scissors lizard spock

for those who watch TBBT

;-)

sounds not too bad


in this case (I made it wrong, now the correct version, corrected part is bold):
heavy units always crush their leight counterparts,
melee units crush their same weight ranged counterparts (who have an advantage just for being ranged),
light units crush mages,
mages crush heavy units.

 

[Muf-Muf]

I am wondering why the cannoner is in the chart. Is this part of the third chapter to this adjustment? The cannoner will be made a human unit so that this balanced system is not skewed against the human fighters who otherwise have no heavy ranged unit?

Excellent observation, we were wondering if someone would pick up on that. Cookie for you!

Will we still be able to fight Tournaments weekly and win the same number/levels of Provinces?

The total number of squads you can train (and thus: use) should still be similar as to what it is now (on average, of course). So, in theory, the answer on your question is: yes.

so, essentially it's rock paper scissors lizard spock

You could say that, yes.

 

[DeletedUser118]

So we get another unit we can use (as I'm an elf) but at the same time it needs a new building that will eat up space in my city. Hmm, I'm not really sure if that many ppl will like it, seeing how many already didn't really like the Magic Academy.

Edit: I would suggest that if you have three buildings now to build troops in, that we get more slots added to the queue. Eight would be nice.

 

[Dony]

how big is that new building? 3x3 4x4 or 5x5?
will be both upgradable later on with new chapters? will upgrade increase training speed on this units and how that speed will corelate with barracks speed?

 

[CrazyWizard]

@Muf-Muf

What about the needles?

Will it get a revamped as well?
The longer it takes to build a unit the more effective this building becomes.

Example: right now as an orc player the needles when build shaves of about 4 seconds from building a golem, and 1 second for each consecutive level.
if those same golems are build in 1/3rd of the time. it's 1 second of you build the needles and none for each consecutive level.

A sword acrobat right now takes 20 seconds to build with a lvl 4 needles in place, without one it takes also 20 seconds.
so with reduced training times, this wonders secondary ability becomes obsolete

 

[DeletedUser]

The total number of squads you can train (and thus: use) should still be similar as to what it is now (on average, of course). So, in theory, the answer on your question is: yes.

Yes. But the question is also dependent on the rebalancing and expected losses. Two things about Elven Tournaments:

1) We fight almost exclusively with Golem / Sorc III (now Treant III, too). Losses are relatively minimal, due to the strength of our fighters. In the future, however the developers rebalance the fighters, I'm pretty sure we'd like to request that the Tournaments are structured with the same relative balance of loss. Otherwise, if we lose more relative troops than currently, it won't matter if our production is equivalent.

2) Tournaments require lots of time - so many hours, even though the fighting process is simplistic: we just throw in our top units and fight using similar maneuvers over and over. What if the new fighter balance requires us to fight as in Provinces? First select specific units in response to the opponents, then go to battle and possibly need to surrender in order to re-position troops, then re-select and re-enter battle, then fight with attention to strategy...well, it's not hard to extrapolate a 40% increase in required time. Please consider the amount of time required to fight Tournaments in the new plan.

I can appreciate the concept of battle becoming "more interesting". If it comes at the cost of KP/Relics/Runes (due to relative costs or time), I'd choose boring battle, though. Elvenar is presented as a Builder game - so it's a given that players' primary interest is going to be what helps us build and grow. Battle only helps toward those goals when we complete more of it.

I'm not arguing at this point - just presenting a perspective. Sometimes Inno does choose the "giveth and taketh away" route...

 

[Jixel]

To be honest, if tournaments can't be done with 99% of battles on Auto-fight, I won't have time to compete in them at all. Even this week, where planks is a boost for two of my cities, I can't even find time for auto-battling my way through. There's simply no way I'll be able to join in if it requires the same level of attention and time as province battles normally would.

Quite a while back, Inno said that they gather statistics on the battles - surely they can see how people actually fight them, then, and how impractical the normal battle process would be for tournaments ?

 

[DeletedUser1711]

The first part is exactly right: units with the same class will have the same strenghts and weaknesses. Still, to also comment on the second part of that quote, we believe that there are plenty of other ways that we can use to give each unit a different edge on the battle field. For example, we can work with the numbers, such as the damage the unit can deal, and the distance it can walk, and of course abilities. Don't worry - you will not end up with "the same unit in a different shape". We want to increase how interesting battles are, not decrease it.

First of, Muf-Man, my respect. You always put a smiley on your posts even if you reply to a post that didn't have a very nice tone. (Insert the hope here, that mine wasn't one of those.)

But now comes the but... The "damage the unit can deal, and the distance it can walk, and of course abilities" are exactly what i meant with "barely a difference between human and elves anymore". The Light Melee and Archer units even WILL be the same then. It's like with the ork houses. If you switch one house in an elfen city with a human house no one would realy notice. We have a word for that in german: "Einheitsbrei" (lossly translated: "unity mash"). Everything almost looks the same, feels the same, actualy IS the same. Why not make a little diversity?

The human axeman for example: Let him be good against the heavy melee units. His axe should easily chop down trees or even very well dent the palas armor, and be able to shatter the sworddancers sword. Then again archers and mages are to nimble for him so they evade before he can swing his heavy axe. The golems stone is too hard for the axe and the cannoneer reach is so far that the axeman has trouble reaching him in time.
The elven sworddancer on the other hand would be good against heavy archer units. She can easily attack the joints of the golems and because of her higher dexerty is more effective against cannoneer (maybe increase her distance by one or so). Because of the dexerty she also works better against archers, but mages can stay out of her reach with their magic and her sword does little against heavy melee units.

THAT is stuff that I want to see. Why step down and be content with a simple "rock, papper, scissors"-system? The units then will - as I said before - have barely a difference between then anymore. The developers could be so creative with this!

Well... I guess I gave my two cents to this and now just step down and wait for the changes to hit. Beta won't help with it, because I'm not far enough to really say much about it. I have to wait 'till it come to the normal servers to see how it affects my 290+ provinces city.


PS: MUF-MAN, I WANT A COOKIE, TOO!!! I said that the humans don't have a heavy archer class, which implied that I was wondering about the cannoneer! ... I wanna have a cookie... ;___;

 

[DeletedUser]

Considering for how long many of us have had a useless mercenary camp in our cities taking up precious room, you coming up with yet another building to train troops in, that once again shares the queue with the barracks, its just a slap in the face.
I mean, come on, at this rate in a few chapters we will need half a dozen buildings just to recruit units! And the worst part is, they share the queue with the barracks, so really, they are only in our cities to take up precious room, nothing else.
At least the mercenary camp + the new building should share a separate training queue from the barracks, so we could train 2 types of units at the same time. That way we wouldn't feel like we are wasting so much space in out city. As it is, I can see lots of players just fighting without the extra unit, even if its harder, because of lack of space to build yet another military building.

 

[CrazyWizard]

Ok readed the new post.

So another few questions

Will Mortar I, II, II replace the cerberus in the human tech tree?, since cerberus will no longer be main unit anymore.

Can elves also get cerberus III?, or will we all get those weakly red hounds?

 

[DeletedUser]

When I asked about the Merc Camp:

t will not remain a placeholder, and it will become useful. Also for that goes - more information will follow soon!

So long as the Camp doesn't have a queue, it's nothing but a placeholder. And now we have another placeholder military building? By placeholder, I mean it just functions like a tax: you have to pay space/pop/culture to build this building in order to be allowed to produce. But by having it, we place a burden on an overstressed Barracks via the single production queue. We forfeit valuable production (of one type or another) simply for an ability to produce a new fight unit, but not increase production capacity.

Unless there are actual production or bonus benefits given to these buildings, the only reason they exist is to take up space in our city. This is an example of what I mean by "giveth and taketh": "give" us the new building to produce new units, while "taking" our ability to produce current units.
If this means that they want us to diversify - that we won't need more troops (relatively speaking), just a more diverse mix of troops...great, no problem. None of us complain about moving along the tree and adding new units to our arsenal. We love it - and it doesn't feel like "giving and taking". But it does feel differently when space is taken from our city - and there's nothing given in the exchange.

About the timing for the 2nd new building: introducing yet another building in early play places a burden on small cities...aligning with the perspective of pressuring new players into purchasing the newly released expansions. If the building is truly tiny, I'll retract this opinion. If not, the availability of a new fighting unit for early play is small recompense for the loss of yet more space.

 

[DeletedUser1711]

Just a quick add:

I'm very happy that some other people address the other issues I also have with this change - like this I can continue to nag about the loss of diversity of the troop. But just so I said it at least once:

I absolutely agree with what Bobbykitty, bobbipiazza, and madzix wrote.



In another thread (about the "PlayerMove") I kind of desperately still wanted to believe that INNO wasn't putting us in a bad spot knowingly or unthinkingly, but man, it's getting kind of worse and I'm losing hope...