|
| Thread: Terror of the Knight | |
|
Nocturnal
Promising
Supreme Hero
|
posted May 19, 2015 06:29 PM |
|
|
Terror of the Knight
I don't know if it's just me but even before beta, several skills and abilities clearly point out how Haven Knight will be extremely powerful to the point of making the game "difficult to balance". Their main skills are: Righteousness, Leadership and Economy. I will treat "the Knight" as a plural noun as it represents both male and female.
The knight start with choosing Economy in the early game to build and start the game fastly. Choosing the Novice abilities will make them able to build two buildings in one turn ("Town Planner"), produce additional ore and wood ("Foreman"), and exchange the additional wood and ore to other resources to erect their buildings really fast ("Merchant"). In addition, in expert level they will produce one random resource themselves every turn ("Alchemist") and the costs of their town buildings will fall %20 ("Architect"). At mid-game, they will have a considerabely larger army as they will have completed all the buildings much before than others and will have gold sufficient to buy the creatures through "Recruiter".
In combat against neutrals, due to their faction skill Righteousness , they will have higher than normal defense for standing together ("United We Stand"), retaliate harder than normal ("Rightful Justice"), their morale will let them attack over and over again, it (their morale) will remain extremely high until good morale comes, this high morale will increase also their movement (!) and damage ("Victorious Streak") and will also add morale to their ally units ("Brothers In Arms") and any creature loss will be softened maybe even reversed by Sisters who will heal twice during one turn ("Sisters Of Mercy").
Now let's look at the morale system closer. I will refer to "boosted morale until it gets a good morale" effect as BM now. All units will have seperate high morale values already. During combat it will get higher as one visit of good morale effect to any creature will cause BM for eveyone else ("Brothers in Arms"). The unskilled Light spells will also cause BM ("Blessed Words"). Good morale for creature X will cause better morale through BM for Y,Z,T,W,Q,S creatures. T's BM will end when it has good morale but will make X to reset its own higher morale through BS. This way, every turn, every creature will have over-the-top morale as BM will always be on every creature except the causer of BM. The causer of BM will get its BM back until its next turn comes as it is impossible that no creature in this Haven army not have good morale effect during a whole turn of game. So -and I can't stress this enough- every creature will be on BM throughout the match.
Because remember, they will also have Leadership . Leadership will even add to their morale more with every skill level. They will have even more morale in town's area of control ("Patriot"). They will get even, EVEN more morale during the first 3 turns of the combat ("Rousing Speech"). As the same ability will also cause them to have high initiative, Haven units will start first and again thanks to the same ability, many of them will have good morale effect happen and they will attack first, reach you thanks to "Victorious Strike", attack with additional force (again "Rousing Speech") and then attack once again.
Now the more broken part starts: They will have two more additional creature slots when they get to Expert Leadership ("Outnumbering"). So it will be possible for Haven to have two Champion units in its army, dividing them. It is again declared that "the range of power between the weakest core creature and the biggest champion is greater than in the previous game. A bunch of sentinels cannot take out a titan by themselves: the big guy will kill them by the dozen with each slam." Haven will have this room to put them all into its army because of having one more row in "Tactics"
The Knight will have the required gold as the gold cost of recruiting creatures is decreased by %15 ("Recruiter") and the daily income of all towns is increased by %30 ("Estates"). The hero specialties "increases the weekly growth of X" will provide a fat stack of Core creatures too. When the Knight divide their champion and, say, Justicars or that core creature they or their second/third heroes will provide a growth boost to to two units, you will have a gigantic Haven army in front of you.
This gets even uglier: as if this army is not enough of its own, their size will even grow more by %5 at the start of battle ("Reinforcements"). This army will attack much before than you due to increased initiative ("Rousing Speech"), will reach you much faster due to increased speed ("Victorious Streak") will attack hard due to their increased damage ("Victorious Streak", "Rightful Justice", "Leading by Example"), more than half of the units will attack more than once due to high morale and BM, Justicar will attack four times ("Cleave") while also retailating to everything ("Opportunity Strike"), Swordmaster and Crossbowman will attack many with one attack ("Sweep", "Piercing Shot"), meanwhile Sisters will heal loses and Celestial will add to that on occasion ("Resurrection") while they also stop enemy's spells ("Aura Of Purity"). Even more is that Abbot will also stop spells and have "Ranged Retaliation". And this terror will rain on the opponent from 9 creatures, two of them being champions with added stacks through "Reinforcements" which will attack twice in each turn and reach to you in two, possibly in one turn due to increased speed and initiative.
We have a level cap of 30. Is it enough to have all of these? Yes.
In this scenario, the Knight will have only unskilled Light Magic spells which we don't know yet. As Haven heroes will most likely never have bad morale, "Resolution" will not be chosen. As creatures will already have enough morale raining on them to not depend on a creature dying "Coordinated Effort" can be rid of. This means the hero will get this power at level 28. If the Knight think their army is enough without "Reinforcements", and if the additional attack power "Leading by Example" is not big enough, you will get it level 26. And spend all additional points to other skills like Light Magic, Offense, Defense to grant some more buffs to your army.
But here comes a second and worse scenario:
If there are enough map locations or alternative ways to raise a secondary hero to level 10, there will be no need for your main hero to spend even one point to "Economy".
The secondary heroes will carry "Economy" as every effect in "Economy" tree (except for "Alchemist") concerns the town and not the hero. This means, the Knight will reach this explained power at level 16-18!
Don't forget the Knight will have Light Magic. So all the additional points will be spent on Light Magic, Offense or Defense, so with Resurrection the hero will also add to the healing powers of Sisters and Celestials and with the other Light Magic spells pour buffs on already ecstatic units. In this case the buffs from Light Magic will add to BM even more ("Blessed Words"). The already high offense and defense of Haven will be even higher with additional buffs from Light Magic spells, Attack or Defense skills to, at this point, humiliate and make fun of the opponent.
A level 18 hero that has this kind of power doesn't seem rational to me. And without this additional scenario, at the explained level 28, the hero will be unstoppable anyway.
All of these make Haven seems to be critically at the edge of being broken. For other factions to become a true rival at level 28-30 and stop the Knight's rampage, Dungeon should be able to summon Malassa herself to the battle, Academy should begin with a phantom of its whole army and such extreme possibilities should be given to all the others which is of course absurd.
There is a solution to stop scenario 2 from happening. And it requires three changes. The first two of them are required to stop only scenario 2:
a- A little like Diablo 2 level system, skill levels will require, not having one ability from the level below, but a hero level. For example: unlocking Expert level of a skill requires the hero to be level 10; Master, level 20; Grandmaster, level 28. This will hinder and even prevent a secondary hero to have most of the "Economy" skills and the Knight will actually have to have them themselves.
b- If we call the hero with "Recruiter" X and a hero without "Recruiter" Y: When Y is taking the creatures Y bought, make the player pay for the difference.
Even if this happens and "Economy" becomes a must for the Knight, this will leave us with with the end-game level 28 Knight, which have a BM loop that causes an army of 9 creatures, two of which are Champions, attack first, fast, hard, more than once and some at more than one creature each time. These are required to stop scenario 1 from happening as well as a follow-up solution to scenario 2:
In addition to making the previous solution to stop "Economy" skill
c- Remove "Outnumbering" from the game.
d- Make "Outnumbering" the Grandmaster ability, remove "Reinforcements" and do not put "Leadership" as a main skill to any Haven heroes, thus cut Haven's path to "Outnumbering".
e- A creature cannot get positive morale effect in two consecutive turns.
In order scenario 2 to not happen: a, b and one of c,d,e changes must be made
In order scenario 1 to not happen: one of c,d,e changes must be made.
So, I guess that's all. Thanks for reading.
____________
|
|
icefield
Adventuring Hero
|
|
posted May 19, 2015 06:37 PM |
|
|
Note that outnumbering will open the two extra slots only for the battle, so this lineup won't happen. Otherwise you're right.
I think this is intended. The closed beta with two faction is set up to find out how this can be countered with magic. Then they add the other factions.
|
|
Nocturnal
Promising
Supreme Hero
|
|
posted May 19, 2015 06:48 PM |
|
|
Fixed it. Thanks.
____________
|
|
alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
|
|
posted May 19, 2015 07:00 PM |
|
|
I doubt that opening by picking several levels in Economy will be your default choice. Seems to be postponing abilities that will help you in combat way too far.
____________
What will happen now?
|
|
Nocturnal
Promising
Supreme Hero
|
|
posted May 19, 2015 07:06 PM |
|
|
alcibiades said:
I doubt that opening by picking several levels in Economy will be your default choice. Seems to be postponing abilities that will help you in combat way too far.
By opening, I mean choosing in the early game. If "economy" was changed this way, one would want its bonuses as a Knight early game where even one resource counts and you will get free resources and double-build.
And what I'm trying to show is how frigtening the Knight will end up after their mid-game build not how they start.
____________
|
|
icefield
Adventuring Hero
|
|
posted May 19, 2015 08:27 PM |
|
|
|
Economy will likely go to a secondary - resources are found on the map, fighting, but town planner sounds to good to miss early.
|
|
Nocturnal
Promising
Supreme Hero
|
|
posted May 19, 2015 08:28 PM |
|
|
icefield said:
Economy will likely go to a secondary - resources are found on the map, fighting, but town planner sounds to good to miss early.
That's one of the things I'm saying here, that they should avoid it going to a secondary
____________
|
|
Dave_Jame
Promising
Legendary Hero
I'm Faceless, not Brainless.
|
|
posted May 20, 2015 04:21 AM |
|
|
This is all nice and well written, but it stands on a single flaw.. we do not know how other factions will work or how the numbers will be distributed.
Economy is a common skill, and its ipact can be applied to any faction. As for the other skills, have you noticed some of the perks? A perk dedicated to protect against negative moral. When was the last something like this was needed in the game? And why would it be there in the first place? Moral can turn out to be a very unstable resource in the end. Many spells have devastating AoE boosts and if you look at stronghold, you'll notice that a really large number of units have a way to avoid retaliation. Same with Academy, which looks very OP in one way or another.
On one side we have perks and lineups that motivate defensive play, on the other one we have abilities that punish them. Until we see all the skills, and all the numbers it is all just a dreamfull fanntasy, but many of uss will soon have their firs oportunity.
|
|
Nocturnal
Promising
Supreme Hero
|
|
posted May 20, 2015 01:06 PM |
|
|
Dave_Jame said:
This is all nice and well written, but it stands on a single flaw.. we do not know how other factions will work or how the numbers will be distributed.
Economy is a common skill, and its ipact can be applied to any faction. As for the other skills, have you noticed some of the perks? A perk dedicated to protect against negative moral. When was the last something like this was needed in the game? And why would it be there in the first place? Moral can turn out to be a very unstable resource in the end. Many spells have devastating AoE boosts and if you look at stronghold, you'll notice that a really large number of units have a way to avoid retaliation. Same with Academy, which looks very OP in one way or another.
On one side we have perks and lineups that motivate defensive play, on the other one we have abilities that punish them. Until we see all the skills, and all the numbers it is all just a dreamfull fanntasy, but many of uss will soon have their firs oportunity.
That's true. But the obvious thing for me is the difference between the Knight and the other heroes. The combination of these two skills (Right. & Leadership) seems to carry the Knight much above the others. Either the Knight will be OP or the other heroes will be underpowered.
However unstable Morale may be, it won't be unstable for Haven, that's obvious.
____________
|
|
mammothhunter
Tavern Dweller
|
|
posted May 23, 2015 05:01 PM |
|
|
Haven is now supposed to use rush combat tactics. Rousing speech in leadership lets your troops act first, tactics draws them one square closer to the enemy to reach them in the first round. Whoever acts first also casts first. Grandmaster leadership with increased movement even ensures your stacks will get to shooters and block them wherever they are. Increased morale also gives a second half-turn in case sentinels are too slow to get to the enemy line in the first round.
Other factions should have some really strong racials to counter that. But with Ubi trying to balance OP things with even more OP ones I wouldn't worry too much about that. There is a good chance other factions will have something for them too.
|
| |
|
|
