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Along the line of "players looking for a problem to fix", having the workshop expanded to encompass editing/creation of spells, units, skills, even entirely new classes would mean an explosion of user created options in that regard. As a bonus, anything created that is popular/decent enough can even be adopted by Triumph to be incorporated into the game itself. You likely won't see players created new art assets in large numbers or quickly, but every other aspect of content creation can be done by the community without much fuss if they are given the opportunity. It would also give people an outlet that talk about balance changes or different playstyles, since they will have those options available through mods. Rome 2 does this pretty well as an example.
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Oct 20, 2014 19:46
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Golems shouldn't have 32 movement points, that's my only input! They're supposed to be a slow faction so it seemed weird to e that they got 32 movement points. Also the single player AI does not respond very well to golems when they roll out. At that point the AI is probably spamming t3/t4 units exclusively when specific t1/t2 units fare a bit better against them outside of heroes. So the golems just end up leveling and rolling the game because the AI does not adapt. I have no idea what the multiplayer situation looks like. The big MP posters that I know of on the main forums aren't weighing in that much on the balance discussions. I'd be surprised if games really get that far anyway with how high golems are and how bloodthirsty the games that I've observed.
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Oct 20, 2014 19:46
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I think part of the problem is just the design philosophy behind the Dreadnought doesn't work as well in AI matches. It's a class with overwhelming force and resistance/immunity to a lot of tools, but is slow to build up a force and vulnerable to attrition. Playing against a dreadnought, you won't notice their unit attrition unless you're in an all-out war against them, nor are you likely to notice that you have a bigger army, especially if playing against the AI who loses units to attrition all the time regardless of class and gets bonus production to compensate. You will however notice that their machines hit really loving hard and your archers do basically no damage and they're likely just immune to your priests' attacks. Playing against a dreadnought is really loving frustrating. However, if you're the dreadnought, you will notice that your units take forever to produce and that every scratch is staying forever, unless you stack with your leader or eventually a useless builder, unlikely dreadnought hero or mortal gold medal engineer. For some inexplicable reason, the enemy archers and priests will pile their debuffs and attacks on your engineers instead of attacking your machines. You will notice that you hit pretty hard, I guess. Playing as a dreadnought is loving frustrating. I'm not saying that you shouldn't change anything, but I think that if people ever stop complaining about dreadnoughts from both sides, you've betrayed your design philosophy.
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Oct 20, 2014 22:01
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Triskelli posted:And don't get me wrong, it is fantastic that you're willing to reach out to the community for solutions. But what you have to keep in mind is that most of your players are not game designers. The people vocal enough to come up with solutions are dissatisfied young people desperate to find a problem to fix. Listen to what they think is wrong, yes, but throw out any balance fixes they propose. Remember, you're the designer, not the fans. Don't worry about it, I'm not really a game designer either, I just kind of fell into it  I understand what you're saying, I've discarded more balance ideas from fans than you could possibly imagine, we have to really, people are capable generating such a volume of balance ideas and things we have no choice but to discard the vast majority of them. On the other hand, sometimes somebody will post something like "Why don't the undead heal on the world map in blighted terrain?" and next thing you know, Goblins have Swamp Foraging. But anyways, I was actually just curious if people thought they were OP or not, since they seem to be an extremely divisive unit. As you guys say, they don't really fit anywhere, which is why they're such a pain to balance. I do have some rather more extreme ideas about how to fix it, but they're a bit much and I'm very busy with expansion stuff right now. I'm not sure that rewriting half the dreadnaught's unit line up is really on the cards. madmac posted:I'm not yet convinced the current unlock order is optimal, really, and it's a little weird fluffwise because you have the most high-tech of the three unlocked first. If it were up to me I'd probably do Cannon/Flamer/Golem, (balanced to match) and people would howl to high heavens. That was kind of my earlier point though, whichever machine is first in the tech tree will be the one that is used the most, and also draw the most complaints because they're all hyper annoying in a single specialized way.) There isn't an optimal unlock order, I think. Each T3 has a special role (Melee, Crowd Control, Long Range) and the optimal order probably depends on the preferences and situation of the player. I'm almost tempted to demote one of the units to Tier 2 to fix it, but, well, see above... Kajeesus posted:I'm not saying that you shouldn't change anything, but I think that if people ever stop complaining about dreadnoughts from both sides, you've betrayed your design philosophy. As one of my colleagues says "As long as no-one can agree if its OP, UP or neither, it's probably balanced!"
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Oct 20, 2014 22:13
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Gerblyn posted:There isn't an optimal unlock order, I think. Each T3 has a special role (Melee, Crowd Control, Long Range) and the optimal order probably depends on the preferences and situation of the player. I'm almost tempted to demote one of the units to Tier 2 to fix it, but, well, see above... I personally don't think the Golem is OP (had some fun overcharging them, but watching the damage tick down hurts), but I do think we've hit on the bigger problem that we don't know what the "role" of the Golem is supposed to be. Asking you directly, Gerblyn. I know you said "Melee", but that's a little generic and doesn't define how they're different from any other melee unit. Going off the stats I think supposed to be a immovable object, able to whale on anything that's dumb enough to pass by or get in reach, and hold those enemies tight while it beats the snot out of them. If there's a design goal you guys are working towards it'd be nice to hear it. e: Actually, it might be fun if this is what's intended, it means you could turn the Golem into a stocky support unit that focuses on getting units into place for AoE attacks by trapping them or drawing aggro. e2: So that's what, three different roles now? We've got monster-hunter robot, MMO tank, and tier 2 resurgent empire defenders. Triskelli fucked around with this message at 23:51 on Oct 20, 2014 |
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Oct 20, 2014 23:06
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The different roles aren't mutually exclusive really, are they? I mean the main points of golems is that they are durable for cost (at least in the very first fight they are in) and they don't have aoe/cooldown gimmicks to work around. Nearly every unit the dread has access to is a ranged plinker, the golem is the only get-mixed-in hold-them-down unit they get, which you need in order for range units to really shine. Other classes fill this unit role fairly well without the strategic layer drawbacks. Theo crusaders in particular can get some crazy defense for cost, and instead of having a lack of healing that the golem suffers from they are part of a class has heal diarrhea. That can make them much better at that role. The main difference is the theo can't bring a firing line of muskets along behind those crusaders to utterly crush anything the tank tied down from relative safety. It makes the support look like the superstars because they are holding up the theo's lines with heals and charms, but the crusader makes it possible. You don't hear a lot of people sobbing about crusaders though because it isn't as directly obvious how much they bring to the team. People have strong reactions when they see big number differences or things happen quickly. Slow grinding down isn't as obvious, even if the outcome is the same in both situations. Same reason why people rage about hobbits sometimes, both claiming them to be crap or OP. Perception plays a big part in the way players feel about what happened. I guess if golem was toned down a bit but they remained hard to kill, and engineers got repair machine a bit earlier, they would be just as viable at controlling space without also being damage threats. Maybe a new skill that increases their counter and opportunity attack damage, but lower base damage? That would further define their role and take away from them being simply better than other melee units. Carnalfex fucked around with this message at 02:37 on Oct 21, 2014 |
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Oct 21, 2014 02:16
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I like Golems as they are. They are a great front line tank that lets the Dreads other units do their work. Plus or Minus a point here or there probably won't cripple them but I don't see a need to change them.
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Oct 21, 2014 03:36
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Unrelated to golemchat, are master shipyards not supposed to show up in RMG maps? I didn't know they existed until I started messing with the map editor.
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Oct 21, 2014 03:40
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I just think it's silly that an engineer needs to become an elite blunderbuss sniper before he figures out how to fix machines.
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Oct 21, 2014 05:41
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eXXon posted:I just think it's silly that an engineer needs to become an elite blunderbuss sniper before he figures out how to fix machines. Or he needs to spend a shitload of time reloading muskets and cannons.
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Oct 21, 2014 05:50
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eXXon posted:I just think it's silly that an engineer needs to become an elite blunderbuss sniper before he figures out how to fix machines. They originally had repair machine out of the box, but we had to remove it. Lack of healing is the only real weakness machines have, and having a cheap T1 unit that mitigated that was completely broken, unfortunately. I agree it's pretty weird. Carnalfex posted:The different roles aren't mutually exclusive really, are they? I mean the main points of golems is that they are durable for cost (at least in the very first fight they are in) and they don't have aoe/cooldown gimmicks to work around. Nearly every unit the dread has access to is a ranged plinker, the golem is the only get-mixed-in hold-them-down unit they get, which you need in order for range units to really shine. This is pretty much the goal we had in mind for them, they're supposed to help keep other units safe by engaging melee units before they can get to the cannons and musketeers.
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Oct 21, 2014 07:26
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eXXon posted:I just think it's silly that an engineer needs to become an elite blunderbuss sniper before he figures out how to fix machines. Basically this; field repairs should be their first level up ability.
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Oct 21, 2014 07:26
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CommissarMega posted:Basically this; field repairs should be their first level up ability. It would honestly be completely broken. Repair on a level one irregular would take Dread from being the class with the (intentionally) worst healing to one of the best.
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Oct 21, 2014 12:44
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I honestly think the engis and dreads in general work pretty great as-is. A more in depth tech UI that allowed for branching to make the tech tree into a real tree would probably help the tier 3 unit situation a lot; give the player a choice as to what tier 3 to research and make them all relatively equal in cost/power. That is a whole other can of worms, though.
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Oct 21, 2014 15:56
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I'd rather see Golems stay really strong and simply trade places with Flame Tanks in availability(with Flame Tanks being buffed to be better in field battles). I'd like Flame Tanks to hit the field sooner and be a lot more central to the Dread playstyle rather than that unit I never loving build because they've got a billion weaknesses and I could just be spamming cannons or Golems or finishing the tech to Juggs instead because Flame Tanks are super duper cool. Seriously most of my Dread games consist of me playing racial units + muskets until I start mass producing the endgame mechanicals.
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Oct 21, 2014 19:09
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Kanos posted:I'd rather see Golems stay really strong and simply trade places with Flame Tanks in availability(with Flame Tanks being buffed to be better in field battles). I'd like Flame Tanks to hit the field sooner and be a lot more central to the Dread playstyle rather than that unit I never loving build because they've got a billion weaknesses and I could just be spamming cannons or Golems or finishing the tech to Juggs instead because Flame Tanks are super duper cool. You're literally describing the way it used to be before the patch and there was absolutely no reason to not mass flame tanks (along with musketeers and some engies) once you got them. The flame tank right now is bad, but moving him down in the tech tree would be a step backwards. I'd rather have the flame tank attack be able to burn down wooden walls or something. This would make them excellent at sieging cities with wooden walls at a point in the game where they are readily available, but costly. It would make them a unique and powerful siege weapon/defensive unit thats kind of clumsy in field battles. Also burning down entire sections of wall sounds fun and like a thing a dreadnought would do.
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Oct 21, 2014 20:01
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a!n posted:You're literally describing the way it used to be before the patch and there was absolutely no reason to not mass flame tanks (along with musketeers and some engies) once you got them. This sounds really cool. Giving them some kind of sprint style engine overcharge ability would make them a lot more useful in field battles as another option. Something that comes with the same cooldown as their flame blast so they hang back on the first turn, then zoom up and blast on the second like an AoE cavalry charge. It could even stun them after the charge for a turn maybe, making using it an all-in strategy with potential huge payoff and a lot of risk. Unrelated, is there a reason why transports still haven't gotten a movement and sight reduction compared to other naval units? Naval units keep getting buffs like terror from the deep, and the embarkation debuff was increased, but that is all meaningless when a transport moves quickly. Naval units have one purpose: stopping transports. They can't go on land at all. If transports move quickly and can see naval units coming it doesn't matter how high naval unit stats get buffed. Most other 4x games did this a while ago, like civ and rome. It just seems like a really obvious thing that would take ten seconds to change. Rome even went the extra step to say units embarking from port cities don't have to end their turn immediately upon embarking, making harbors that much more strategically valuable. Carnalfex fucked around with this message at 20:15 on Oct 21, 2014 |
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Oct 21, 2014 20:07
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Since Golems are not robots but actually an engineer in a mechsuit, I say bump them up to T4 and go full Iron Man. Flamethrower arm and all.
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Oct 21, 2014 21:01
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a!n posted:You're literally describing the way it used to be before the patch and there was absolutely no reason to not mass flame tanks (along with musketeers and some engies) once you got them. Why would I bother bringing flame tanks that are awful deadweight in field battles to burn down wooden walls when I can build cannons on the same tech tier and blow apart both wooden and stone walls from a longer, safer range(and usually kill the people hiding behind them in the bargain) while also being good in field battles? Flame tanks are a cool unit that is currently entirely useless, which is a shame.
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Oct 22, 2014 19:06
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Kanos posted:Why would I bother bringing flame tanks that are awful deadweight in field battles to burn down wooden walls when I can build cannons on the same tech tier and blow apart both wooden and stone walls from a longer, safer range(and usually kill the people hiding behind them in the bargain) while also being good in field battles? You actually get access to Cannons ealier then Flame Tanks, now. I know why tanks got bumped to the end of the trech tree, but I don't think it was thought out very well. Also, I'm reasonably certain Flame Tanks can already damage wooden walls and gates but do nothing to stone.
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Oct 22, 2014 19:12
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madmac posted:You actually get access to Cannons ealier then Flame Tanks, now. I know why tanks got bumped to the end of the trech tree, but I don't think it was thought out very well. Nope, flame tanks can burn down stone gates just fine--just only the part that looks like wood. Against wooden walls they destroy everything.
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Oct 22, 2014 21:08
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Redeye Flight posted:Nope, flame tanks can burn down stone gates just fine--just only the part that looks like wood. Against wooden walls they destroy everything. Now if only your units could pass through your other units. I'd be willing to give up an action point for that.
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Oct 23, 2014 02:19
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Kanos posted:Why would I bother bringing flame tanks that are awful deadweight in field battles to burn down wooden walls when I can build cannons on the same tech tier and blow apart both wooden and stone walls from a longer, safer range(and usually kill the people hiding behind them in the bargain) while also being good in field battles? I can't find a good use for flame tanks the way they are now either. That's why I'm a little apprehensive about the talk of nerfing golems, because if they get hit too hard the Dreadnaught could become a pretty mediocre-to-bad class.
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Oct 23, 2014 05:45
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Judas Iscaredycat posted:I can't find a good use for flame tanks the way they are now either The last patch just gave them "Starts On Cooldown" and made them come out later in the tech tree. I assume that the main issue is simply that they come out too late? Triskelli posted:Now if only your units could pass through your other units. I'd be willing to give up an action point for that. We tried that during the beta and it didn't work very well. It did make your own armies much easier to use, but it made the battlefield really hard to read, and people kept getting blindsided by the AI moving units through each other in weird ways to get flanking attacks off and stuff.
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Oct 23, 2014 08:14
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I would say that I'd still like that more, but I think I might also be expressing a desire to have a game that's a lot more like Civilization than what the AoW series has with finer unit granularity. The more realistic the better, I guess.
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Oct 23, 2014 08:46
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Gerblyn posted:The last patch just gave them "Starts On Cooldown" and made them come out later in the tech tree. I assume that the main issue is simply that they come out too late? I think what made Flame Tanks so good before is that, since they came out so early, when they first hit the field the bulk of most armies was T1 and T2 units. And well... T1 and T2 units get absolutely crushed by Flame Tanks. In the current patch, by the time Flame Tanks roll around the game is already in the T3/4 phase.
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Oct 23, 2014 09:00
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Ojetor posted:I think what made Flame Tanks so good before is that, since they came out so early, when they first hit the field the bulk of most armies was T1 and T2 units. And well... T1 and T2 units get absolutely crushed by Flame Tanks. Coming out later is most of the problem, yes. A unit designed to roll over low tier units and wooden walls doesn't have much impact coming out in the Tier 3 Flyers and Stone Walls phase of the game. Starting on cooldown makes them even worse, but that's again aggravated by the fact that late game units have no problem rushing down and wrecking a Flame Tank given a free turn or two. It is somewhat match-up dependent of course. Flame Tanks will always be pretty handy against Theocrats and Druids.
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Oct 23, 2014 12:54
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Gerblyn posted:The last patch just gave them "Starts On Cooldown" and made them come out later in the tech tree. I assume that the main issue is simply that they come out too late? Just an idle thought, but maybe certain units should be able to pass through others? Wisps come to mind, but maybe the teleportation ability is already serving that purpose.
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Oct 23, 2014 17:36
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Space Hamlet posted:Just an idle thought, but maybe certain units should be able to pass through others? Wisps come to mind, but maybe the teleportation ability is already serving that purpose. idk if I would get on board for that. I'd rather plan for all units adhering to a mechanic or none of them. Anything that needs the extra mobility can get an ability (like teleport).
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Oct 23, 2014 17:50
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Gerblyn posted:The last patch just gave them "Starts On Cooldown" and made them come out later in the tech tree. I assume that the main issue is simply that they come out too late? Starting on cooldown has a lot of knock-on effects. Kanos talked about most of them, but let me reiterate the one that bothers me the most- in most battles, I'm not going to play keep away until the flame tanks are ready, so I will have units in close combat with the enemies that would also take damage (unhealable if it's another machine) from the AOE attack unless they're immune to fire. Those units are usually already partially damaged from fighting so if the flame tank doesn't finish the job, they could be killed next turn when they otherwise wouldn't have been. Even if it does kill that enemy, the AI is cutthroat about piling on severely damaged units, so other enemies are going to jump on it if they can. Frequently I find myself not attacking with the flame tank even when I can because of this, so that spot in the army is better used on basically anything else. In sieges, I tend to focus on bypassing the walls rather than destroying them, so flame tanks always get through too late to matter. I also don't notice machine units being as durable as people describe them, but that might just be me being bad at positioning.
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Oct 23, 2014 19:42
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Space Hamlet posted:Just an idle thought, but maybe certain units should be able to pass through others? Wisps come to mind, but maybe the teleportation ability is already serving that purpose. I thought that flying units already could do this? On a site note, I just replayed the second halfling campaign and got the shadow stalker you get up to champion 14 (240 health by the end of the campaign). Also, the wild magic spell that gives every living unit 2 random mutations is fun as hell. (Oh poo poo my Eldritch horror has eyes everywhere and spikes growing from it now). I'd like it if there were a wild magic based unit that could mutate things as one of its abilities, the way human priests get bestow iron heart.
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Oct 23, 2014 22:14
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Lobsterpillar posted:I'd like it if there were a wild magic based unit that could mutate things as one of its abilities, the way human priests get bestow iron heart. Definitely something that would fit in well with the eldritch pits that were added!
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Oct 24, 2014 03:58
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Another Friday, another dev journal http://ageofwonders.com/dev-journal-the-bone-collector-and-deathbringer/ Reverse Resurgence is a perfect Necromancer mechanic, I've gotta say.
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Oct 24, 2014 16:45
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I never realized how much the game needed giant crabs until I saw that gif. Both the deathbringer and horror sound like fantastic fun units and compliment each other with tank and damage roles. I wonder what other range units the necro will get besides the shovelpriest?
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Oct 24, 2014 16:54
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Well lets see, so far for Necromancers we've got: Raising/Stealing "Ghouled Units" as a core mechanic, and probably being able to produce them from converted cities. More or less replaces the old basic skeleton units in a more interesting and varied way. Lost Souls as a floating/undying summon scout with various tricky abilities, takes bits from the old Zombie and Spectre units. The Reanimator as a Ranged/Support unit with a creepy support ability, more or less cribs from the old Necromancer unit but with far more style. The Deathbringer as a sneaky striker type unit with a powerful convert through death ability. Replaces the old Vampire. The Bone Collector as the best crab, replacing the old Bone Horror. At a minimum we haven't seen the Tier 4 yet, which may or may not be based on the Reaper. Other then that it's a fairly complete line-up but it could easily be expanded if they want. Another range unit might be nice, it's a pretty melee heavy lineup of class units so far.
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Oct 24, 2014 17:14
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Oh man, Deathbringer looks like something straight out of Hellraiser.
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Oct 24, 2014 17:47
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That crab  I'n loving everything posted so far, but still hoping for some zombies and skeletons. Maybe as a summon?
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Oct 24, 2014 18:04
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Splicer posted:That crab I'm pretty sure everything your deathbringers kill are going to be zombies and skeletons. e: Reanimators are gonna summon skeletons too
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Oct 24, 2014 18:19
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Fitzy Fitz posted:Oh man, Deathbringer looks like something straight out of Hellraiser. It's going to look a bit hilarious with goblins and halflings.
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Oct 24, 2014 18:25
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Mokinokaro posted:It's going to look a bit hilarious with goblins and halflings. You gotta watch out for Goblin Vampires. They'll suck the blood right out of your kneecaps before you even seen them coming.
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Oct 24, 2014 18:28
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