Battle Get rid of the battleground obstacles

[PaNonymeB]

Idea : Currently, when we start a fight the units appear in a battleground with some obstacles and then fight on this battleground. I'd purpose to get rid of these battleground obstacles and make all fights happen in the same obstacle-free battleground.
Edit 09/10 : The idea would be to rebalance the placement of obstacles. For example, there should never be an obstacle in front of a starting position (this creates situations where units can't move on round 1), and there should never be a wall that separates two parts of the map with only one path between (this favors ranged units way too much)

Pros :

• Reduces randomness of difficulty of fights created by these obstacles
• Avoids the frustration of losing a fight that should have been won just because our units were actually stuck behind a wall ; make autofight results more predictable
• Reduces the gap between ranged units that ignore the obstacles when shooting and melee units that can be stuck behind a wall
• Reduces the gap between app players that possibly don't even know about this battleground and these obstacles and browser players than can do manual fighting and possibly then choose to cater if the obstacles are blocking our troops

Cons :

• Requires a proper rebalancing work => takes development time
• It's hard to trust Inno for rebalancing of anything without nerfing it these days.

 

[Lovec Krys]

+1000

 

[CrazyWizard]

+2000

This would get rid of a lot of random annoying losses that make no sense.
It would make it a lot more fun, and the outcome predictable.

 

[palmira]

besides all, this would close the gap between browser and app players.

 

[T6583]

+1 This would be very welcomed by mobile players who do not have the option to manual fight and by autofight players who might not want to manual fight / have the time to manual fight. It's frustrating to lose a battle because you don't have the option to see the terrain and the terrain is the reason you lost, especially when your on mobile and based on troop selection / squad sizes you should have won.

 

[CrazyWizard]

besides all, this would close the gap between browser and app players.

It also improved the odd agains those pesky mistwalkers who always kill hbalf your troops first, it will be easier to put some defence up against them as you can predict there moves

 

[Karvest]

Without obstacles mistwalkers can hit 4/5 units from 4 positions and any unit from the last position. Doubt you can put easy defense for that.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

besides all, this would close the gap between browser and app players.

If they want to close the gap, then just get rid of manual fighting. Then they could give us back the easier version of the tournament too.

 

[galrond]

-5 This would totally tip the balance between troops
-5 This would make it boring and predictable. Who would give a shejth about any sports, if you could predict the outcome exactly by seeing the lineup
If you wanted to close the gap between browser and app.... Well remove manual combat
But why should they? This was made as a browser game, and then the app part came as a suplement.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

If you wanted to close the gap between browser and app.... Well remove manual combat
But why should they? This was made as a browser game, and then the app part came as a suplement.

Because more and more new players download the app, instead of playing the browser version. And it would be a lot easier for the devs to remove manual fighting from the browser, than to add it to the app.

 

[CrazyWizard]

Without obstacles mistwalkers can hit 4/5 units from 4 positions and any unit from the last position. Doubt you can put easy defense for that.

Sometimes getting 1 unit on a "safe" spot is enough, and if all units are "attackable" you can predict which unit it will attack as it's always using the same AI rules, this means you can find a way to select your units in an optimal way.

This is now impossible

 

[Yogi Dave]

There are very few things in this game that require strategy and skill. Battle is one that does. Yes, mobile players potentially have a great disadvantage since they can neither see the arena or manual fight. However, I'd wager most browser players neither manual fight or peek at the arena since that waste time. Thus, for all but a small set of browser players who have the time and inclination to mobile fight there is in actuality no disadvantage to mobile players.

Letting everyone easily and quickly see the arena is a much more engaging solution since it would allow learning of what troop combinations work in different arena and enemy troop setups. Allowing manual fighting in mobile would give an even footing. However, that will be difficult to implement on mobile given the variety of sizes for mobile devices, and most people just won't use it. I'd rather lose the ability to manual fight in the browser than have the barriers removed as long as the arena setup can be seen. Man, it hurt to write that.

On an open field, mist walkers in any of the 3 middle positions can reach every one of your units. In the 2 outer most positions, they can reach 4 of them. That means if there are 2 mist walkers on the field they can shoot any of your troops. Mages would be worthless unless you have the Martial Monastery/Sanctuary at a high level and/or one or more of the defensive 5-day buildings in play. Since in the new tourney method the difficulty level of a province gets very high a mist walker can easily take out a mage and badly wound many other troop types you have in play. It's strike back capability will also hurt troops greatly in their retaliatory shot, especially if already wounded. Add on to that a 3-star mist walker reduces your attack strength 20% for 3 rounds making a retaliation weak. Sure, the mist walkers should be nerfed, but that isn't proposed here and Inno has ignored all pleas for that.

I've only mentioned mist walkers, but any troop the enemy has with a higher initiative than the troops you wish to bring into battle will usually have a decent movement and/or range. So, many of them will also get 1st shot at you. It just won't be as devastating as the mist walker.

Bottom line for me: This idea may make the game easier, and remove the frustration of battles lost for no apparent reason. It does not enhance player involvement. It will make the tourney more boring. Letting everyone see the arena easily and quickly can enhance player involvement. I doubt implementing that idea will be as difficult as one might think. The idea proposed will benefit the more advanced players who have the appropriate AWs at a high level, a fire phoenix and 5-day buildings the most. That is something the newer players and less dedicated players don't have.

One last thing: Be careful what you wish for and look carefully at unintended consequences.

 

[Karvest]

Sometimes getting 1 unit on a "safe" spot is enough, and if all units are "attackable" you can predict which unit it will attack as it's always using the same AI rules, this means you can find a way to select your units in an optimal way.

Now there is the same "safe" spot. If you are not using it - AI would most likely hit the unit you'd like to defend with or without obstacles. But with obstacles it sometimes won't hit at all, at the cost of your units would fail to hit first too in other terrain. Removing obstacles won't help with mistwalkers for me.

 

[CrazyWizard]

Now there is the same "safe" spot. If you are not using it - AI would most likely hit the unit you'd like to defend with or without obstacles. But with obstacles it sometimes won't hit at all, at the cost of your units would fail to hit first too in other terrain. Removing obstacles won't help with mistwalkers for me.

With mistwalkers you cannot foresee the terrain map, so have no clue what the safe / sweetspot is. or predict AI movement.

One last thing: Be careful what you wish for and look carefully at unintended consequences.

You are correct, but I liked to pick this small line out of the conversation, can it be worse than what we have seen on beta?

The mistwalker problem has been pointed out from the start, in fact since it's introduction years ago we are complaining what a #$@!% enemy unit it is and due it's insane ultimate speed to be always first it disallows us combat strategies from day 1.

And yet they choose this unit to be one of the main units to be choosen as enemies in the new combat system.

If there would be no terrain (as a compromise) you know if you field units A, B, C and D it will first attack unit for example B, then you can choose to not field B at all or at a spot outside it's reach.
The AI is fairly simple in in similar circumstances it will make similar moves, this way you can field the optimal units against your enemy that has the least amount of weakness, it's still not good or perfect but at least you have a way to predict it.

This way it will create more strategic options.
Off course getting a map previeuw will also work just as fine especially for manual combat.

 

[Karvest]

If there would be no terrain (as a compromise) you know if you field units A, B, C and D it will first attack unit for example B, then you can choose to not field B at all or at a spot outside it's reach.

With terrain you can do the same, it won't be worse than without terrain, safe spot will be the same. Terrain adds only a possibility that some other spot would be safe too as a pros, and a possibility that your units would be locked from hitting enemy as a cons.

 

[Lovec Krys]

And yet they choose this unit to be one of the main units to be choosen as enemies in the new combat system.

We can only guess why...perhaps to make it as hard as possible (as big losses for us as possible).

 

[CrazyWizard]

With terrain you can do the same, it won't be worse than without terrain, safe spot will be the same. Terrain adds only a possibility that some other spot would be safe too as a pros, and a possibility that your units would be locked from hitting enemy as a cons.

Only if you know the terrein beforehand, and since it's the fastest unit in game, there is no way at this moment to peek and know what the terrain will be.

 

[Dony]

Result of this change would be that players would do less provinces on autocombat and manual combat, resulting in getting much less rewards overall, only benefit it would have against enemies which doesnt have counters in their composition, which is 1 fight out of 100 = for average tournament player 1 fight per tournament, so if you really want another nerf then good luck with this suggestions.
Right now battlefields without obstacles are the hardest ones

 

[Karvest]

Only if you know the terrein beforehand, and since it's the fastest unit in game, there is no way at this moment to peek and know what the terrain will be.

Yes, and you can fallback to the your strategy with only one/no safe spots, which are the same as without obstacles.

 

[PaNonymeB]

Result of this change would be that players would do less provinces on autocombat and manual combat, resulting in getting much less rewards overall, only benefit it would have against enemies which doesnt have counters in their composition, which is 1 fight out of 100 = for average tournament player 1 fight per tournament, so if you really want another nerf then good luck with this suggestions.
Right now battlefields without obstacles are the hardest ones

Thanks for feedback ! I understand why removing obstacles would make manual fights overall harder as we won't be able to use obstacles to our benefit so that enemy counterunits can't touch us (added this to the cons list). However, as I think AI isn't smart enough to do this anyway, I'm not sure why it would make autofights harder. Could you give more detail about this ?