General Balance Discussion

[The_Necromancer0]

-nerfing of the warg century by adding a timer before the next warg spawns

I think the same should be applied to the Dire Wolf expansions of the Angmar Castle, if my memory serves they spawn basically non stop, worse than the spider catapults of 3.8.1

About the fear expansions, I think the cooldowns should be a lot longer, it has always seemed quite short. There is also the option of making it an activatable that the player has to click on (with an even longer cooldown since you get to pick when it activates).

[Le Sournois]

Hello,

My idea here is that pikes in general are too strong when they get heavy armors compared to swordsmen.
Swordsmen vulnerability to archers is 100 %  and when they get heavy armors, it is reduced to 65 % = -35 pts

Pikemen vulnerability to archers is 135 % and when they get heavy armors, it is reduced to 85 % = -50 pts, which is a lot more difference than for swordsmen.

Often in late game, I make a lot more pikemen because it is far easier to manage (moreover they get a better range in their attack, if I'm not mistaken ? so that they are not that bad even against swordsmen)

Above all, a very great and nice change in Edain 4.5.4 included the knight shields to protect the calavry even better against archers (which improves the gameplay in my opinion). But this change has made pikes even better than before because cavalry are even more vulnerable to them even with these shields.

To make up for their bad performance against cavalry, I suggest archers to do 100 % damage instead of 85 % against pikemen with heavy armors, which would make a difference of 35 pts as it is for swordsmen.

I feel that one of the strenghts for swordsmen is their reliability against archers, and that strenght should be emphasized even better when they get heavy armors whereas for pikemen, ennemy archers is supposed to be a weakness and that's not coherent in my opinion that their weakness is turned to a strenght once they get heavy armors.

Another suggestion :

To improve the gameplay even better, I think it would be a good idea to reduce slightly structural damage against heavy armors maybe (130 % instead of 150 %) and also to reduce very slighty the hero damage against heavy armors (140 % instead of 150 %) so that heavy armors would not result too much in a disadvantage as it can be sometimes. And that would make the idea that towers are OP in Edain less true as well.

Thank you

[Gnomi]

Hey, just a smalll note on your beginning about the difference:

Swordsmen vulnerability to archers is 100 %  and when they get heavy armors, it is reduced to 65 % = -35 pts

Pikemen vulnerability to archers is 135 % and when they get heavy armors, it is reduced to 85 % = -50 pts, which is a lot more difference than for swordsmen.

You did a small mathematical mistake here. You should not talk about explicit numbers and therefore not use subtraction, but about percentage differences and hence use division. Sutractions will look right in the first place, but there will be some errors, which will make these arguments wrong. In reality the difference is marginal - is is 63% for pikes and 65% for swords, so it is basically the same.

A very quick example would be if sword shat 100% armor and pikes 50% and both times it gets 50% better, so we have 100%-50=50% and 50%-50%=0%. Both times I calculated it the same as you - but pikes will get immune to damage and swords will just get double as strong. Of course the upgrade is way better for pikes here.

An example which is more similar to our problem above would be the following:
Let Swords have an armor of 100% and pikes of 1000%. Armor will both times give 50%, so after the upgrade the armor will be 50% and 950%.So we clearly see, that after an enemy needs two attacks on the swordsman with heavy armor to deal the same damage as one attack without heavy armor. On the other hand 2 Attacks on the pikeman with heavy armor will not deal the same amount as 1 attack on the pikeman without heavy armor, but will deal 90% more damage. So even though the difference is both times 50%, the armor is very strong on swordsmen, as it cuts the damage down by 50%, while it only cuts the damage down on pikes by 5%.
To be equally good, the armor of the pikes must not be changed from 1000% to 950%, but from 1000% to 500% - then the armor also cast the damage in half for both units, even though it is one time only 50% and one time 500%.
(both times it does the same, as 50/100=500/1000)
We have to use the exact same mathematics in your example.
65/100=65
85/135=62.96
So both times the heavy armor upgrade gives you about the same boni. It is clearly not much stronger on pikes (beside the 2%) and the difference is basically the same

Please notice that I do not talk about any problems in particular (and I don't say that your points are wrong) - I just say that your mathematical argument is completely wrong.^^

[Le Sournois]

I admit I had not made maths advanced studies

Thank you for the complete answer and your correction. There is then not a difference between pikes and swordsmen when they equip heavy armors.

What remains of my point is only that then :
Cavalry is a better counter to swordsmen than swordsmen are to pikes because cavalry can trample and make the ennemy unable to attack back during a short time whereas swordsmen simply attack normally and seem sometimes to be more passive in combat than the pikemen (because of their poor range it seems).

Then archers could be a slightly better counter to fully upgraded pikes

[Elendils Cousin 3. Grades]

Cavalry is also twice as expensive as swordsmen. Additionally, pikes also are more vulnerable to archers, which only makes them effective against cavalry - they need to be a harder counter to cavalry to make up for that.

[Le Sournois]

Sorry, I have just a little question at last about elemental damage :

As pikes and swordsmen are vulnerable to 100 % to elemental damage,

if an archer do 100 damage, and equip fire arrows against ennemies with heavy armors, does it do :
85+100 = 185 damage against pikemen
65+100=165 against swordsmen

which seems quite negligable a difference, and that's what I thought at the beginning when I wrote my posts.

OR

85*2=170 damage against pikemen
65*2=130 damage against swordsmen

?

Thank you

[The_Necromancer0]

Let's take an example using the Edain searcher (great tool btw). We're gonna have a look at the Gondor Archer.

The gondor archer deals 25 PIERCE damage and, when upgraded, an additional 15 FLAME damage.

When that archer fires at a Gondor Soldier they deal:
25*100% + 15*100% = 40 damage

when the soldier has heavy armor it becomes
25*65% + 15*100% = ~31

against gondor pikemen with heavy armor it goes from:
25*135% + 15*100% = ~49 (when they don't have heavy armor)

to
25*85% + 15*100% = ~36 (once upgraded with heavy armor)

[Vladimir]

Hi,

could you please buff Imladris on the map "Mission: Sturm auf das Auenland" (the tower defense map)? Compared to other factions, they are way to weak in the early game and are surely the worst faction. I have played them multiple times now in the early game and they are way way harder to play than other factions. It would be great if you make them viable because their late game is cool (I have never actually made it that far with Imladris but I guess the concept is nice lol).

The main reason why they are so weak is quite easy to fix: Dunedain Swordmen are way to overpriced. They cost 40 gold and have 450 hp and 40 damage. Now compare this to a Gondor Swordman that costs 30, has 400hp and 40 damage as well! So you are actually paying 33% more for the Imladris starting unit to get a 12% increase in HP. But this is not the only disadvantage for Imla...

The second problem is that the early game is all about spamming units to avoid getting flanked because if your troops get flanked, they will die instantly. Since the Dunedain cost 10 gold more, you will always have 3-4 less units on the field in the early game compared to Gondor or other factions, meaning you get flanked more easily. I have tried like 15 runs with Imladris in the early game (with different micro, positioning, etc.), and in only 3 or 4 I actually managed to clean-sweep the first ten waves (by sheer luck due to the enemy not clumping on one guy). And in this game mode it is crucial that you don't miss the gold in the early game, as you need to get that unit spam going, otherwise you don't kill the enemy --> no money --> no troops and more flanking damage.

To summarize, Imladris has two main problems here: 1) Their value in terms of HP per gold is bad, and 2) the higher unit costs results in you having less units on the map which means more flanking damage.

Solutions
A) You increase their health to at least 500, then you are getting a 25% increase in health when paying 33% more (Gondor soldiers as the base line).
B) Or you could decrease their cost to 35: Then you would get a 12% hp increase for a cost increase of 16%, making this more fair.

It would be really really nice if you could just fix this in the next patch because it is such a great gamemode! It shouldn't be such a big deal to change the numbers I think

Edit: Compared to Lorien that also has 40 gold melees, Lorien swordmen at least one-hit most of the early enemy units, so you don't have that flanking-damage problem.

[Le Sournois]

Archers on the free build walls however do not benefit from the same armor bonus than in castle walls against ennemy archers and trebuchets ?

Maybe that would have been unbalanced I guess ?

[Elendils Cousin 3. Grades]

Correct, they do not benefit from the wall bonus so turtling does not become too strong.

[Le Sournois]

The feedback I would give for Edain 4.8 are very positive.

I liked when there was a section of general feedback for a new specific version, but nonetheless I shall put my feedback here.

There were some bugs in Edain 4.7 that I have posted and they all disappeared in Edain 4.8, I must thank you for your hardwork to give us each time the best version possible.

Also, free build gameplay is incredibly fun with the Edain specificities, really, a big thank you for that, there is so much new things to try on that I have not even begun the new horde map yet.

The Misty Mountains, my favourite faction is more balanced with the new castle model, very nice.


The only downsides of this version concerns the AI : there is quite a difference in terms of difficulty relatively to the faction we choose : Brutal Gondor behave differently from Edain 4.7, it tends to be super aggressive in the start, but stop being so after a while, sending some lone heroes and stop attacking which is kind of strange, at least in skirmish gamemode. I can then gather resources to reach 5000 without difficulty, not that fun.

Dwarves with their lack of speed are really weak in the beginning, they send some lone heroes, and lone units due to their lack of speed, they would need an great economic buff in the early game I think and a more aggressive behaviour in skirmish

Mordor and Isengard are perfectly fine opponents though.

Lothlorien and Angmar (Angmar not sure, I didn't tested yet as opponents in 4.8) quite weak opponent I guess, and Imladris I have not tested it yet, very nice opponents if it is close to Edain 4.7


I guess the freebuild gamemode implied to make some changes with the AI that could maybe affect skirmish. Maybe that is hard to balance everything, I just post things as I feel about this new version.

But overall, a crazy update, and a good vision, with naval gameplay and fun rework of Isengard !

[The_Necromancer0]

Thanks a lot for your bug reports, as always

We will try to identify the issues with the AI and resolve it. Although I won't hide you that this is no simple task 

[Le Sournois]

I guess it is indeed.

But, it's actually OK as soon as we take some strong factions as opponents : Isengard, Mordor for evil, and Rohan and Imladris for the good folk.