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Autor Thema: Isengard Balance Discussion  (Gelesen 22303 mal)

Elendils Cousin 3. Grades

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Re: Isengard Balance Discussion
« Antwort #15 am: 26. Mär 2020, 13:17 »
The Howl ability of Wargriders is currently bugged, it only increases their speed and doesn't buff their damage as intended. Fixing them should reduce Isengard's vulnerability to cavalry starts.

Seleukos I.

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Re: Isengard Balance Discussion
« Antwort #16 am: 6. Jul 2020, 12:55 »
Hello together :)

I'd like to suggest a small change to two of Isengard's heroes: Lurtz and Ugluk

Right now (and in every other 4.x version I can think of^^) Lurtz and Ugluk are two of the, if not the, most cost efficient heroes in the game. With a price of only 1400 each they are really cheap, both have a strong leadership, good melee combat abilities, Lurtz is an exelent herokiller and Ugluk is good tank with a good level 10 power.
Thanks to how Isengard's economy and the devastation-spell you can afforde both of them quite early in the game. At this point in the game your opponent will most of the time not have the heroes to fight Lurtz and Ugluk, and fighting against an Isengard army with two heroes without own heroes is not good since Isen can level it's heroes (unless you have enough to kill them, cav for example).

Long story short: Lurtz and Ugluk join the fight too early, I feel like.

I'd suggest to increase the price of both of them by 200 to 1600. This isn't a huge change, I know, but I don't want to overnerf them either. If Lurtz and Ugluk would turn out to be still too strong the price could be increased to 1800.

What do you think?

Best regardes,
Seleukos
« Letzte Änderung: 6. Jul 2020, 13:05 von Seleukos I. »

Elendils Cousin 3. Grades

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Re: Isengard Balance Discussion
« Antwort #17 am: 6. Jul 2020, 13:02 »
I would have gone with 1700, but I agree on the issue.

Smeargollum

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Re: Isengard Balance Discussion
« Antwort #18 am: 14. Dez 2020, 14:53 »
Hello everyone!
I think it is fair to say that Isengard is still one of the strongest factions, if not the strongest, despite some nerfs.
Isengard can struggle a bit in the early game against certain factions but most of the time it can strike back in the mid game after getting out some uruks and as we all know Isen is almost unstoppable in the late game. I don’t think that Lurtz, Ugluk, crossbows and, in the late game, Saruman play the biggest part in this “problem” anymore but the insanely strong discounts Isengard can get for both, their units and their upgrades have a huge impact.
The stats of Uruks are a bit stronger than the ones of Gondor soldiers for example and for that they also cost more on paper, however in reality with full discount they only cost a tiny little bit more (210 instead of 200 for the normal swords). 
The upgrades get only discounted by level 3 furnaces but therefor by 50% instead of 30% as it is for every other faction. I know that this is iconic for Isengard as a high-tech industry faction but in my opinion and the opinion of some other players as well that is too strong. Also, the strong industry factor for Isengard is already quite well represented in their strong economy supporting spells.

I think all these discounts combined make Isen to a too strong faction, as they can simply spam way more cost efficient troops than almost every other faction, so I would suggest to nerf them a little bit.

Another thing that gives Isengard a huge power spike in the midgame is the “minions of the white hand” spell, especially the cavalry summon. I know that this was already discussed a lot and it is not easy to nerf it further, I think, however it just forces the opponent to build pikes, can wipe out entire armies or destroy important tech like an outpost with the Wildman summon. That in combination with the Uruk spam can make you win the game relative easily. The problem in nerfing this spell more is that despite being super strong the first time it get’s used it is already significantly weaker by the second time and at some point it doesn’t do anything against the opponents army anymore, because it got upgraded and a lot bigger. So, even though it doesn’t scale at all in the late game, like the “grey company” summon for example which gives a leadership to your troops, it still feels too good and makes Isen a lot stronger.
Of course it would be possible to nerf that spell by making it more expensive or just let it summon less troops, but there is another idea that just came into my mind. What about making it cost less spell points, for example just 1-2 for the basic spell instead of 4, and therefor let it summon only half the troops (so always just one battalion instead of two). The idea behind that is that you can get it earlier, more or less in the transition time from early game Wildman and wargs to Uruks, but it is significantly weaker. Like that the spell could help Isengard out in one of the hardest times for it and with that actually have a role in Isen gameplay other than just winning the game by itself.
Obviously, that is just an idea to change the spell a bit and maybe it would just make the spell stronger but I think it could be worth trying. Also, the next spell for 10 spellpoints would come earlier as the spell before it costs less but that could be adjusted as well.
 
What do you guys think about these ideas for Isengard? Do you disagree entirely or have some further ideas to improve it?

Best regards,
Smeargollum


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Vin55

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Re: Isengard Balance Discussion
« Antwort #19 am: 14. Dez 2020, 15:20 »
I think that the biggest issue is not the spell as you pointed out, but as you correctly assumed, the double upgrade and unit reduction, which makes it very easy for you to field 1500cp of fully upgraded units with even more money for heroes, to the point, where it does not hurt to have saruman killed, because you will just be able to get him back.
The solution for this might really be to either weaken the units discount, so that units cost a little more, which might weaken their early midgame a little too much though, or too decrease the upgrade reduction. I would favour the decrease to the upgrade reduction, and maybe have another decrease in the central Spell for Isengard, where you can build another citadel upgrade which reduces it to the normal amount, which non the less gives you a choice, and still weakens you enough, to have the tech out later.
Another possiblity would be to weaken the base defense of Isengard, especially the warg outpost, by limiting its range maybe?

But I totally agree, that Isengard needs some kind of nerf to the late game. Probably only angmar and mordor can keep up with them there.

Yours kindly,

Vin55

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Re: Isengard Balance Discussion
« Antwort #20 am: 14. Dez 2020, 15:22 »
I'm not a very PvP player but I just wanted to drop my two cents.

The furnace discount is definitely a lot stronger than it used to be since it is now considerably cheaper. Upgrading a furnace to level 3 used to cost at least 450 resources but since the economy upgrades have been introduced it is no longer as expensive and most important it is impossible to remove it. Sure, you can destroy a couple of furnaces but as soon as they're built back up the discount kicks back in immediately.

I think this should be the primary targets for any nerfs since the economy upgrade overhaul gave it an indirect buff.

There are a couple solutions for this, but the idea of this unique discount is quite cool and I hope there is a way to keep it. One idea I had is to make this a temporary active ability which creates two possibilities:

Furnaces no longer provide a discount, when the ability is activated, all level 3 furnaces will discount unit upgrades for 30 seconds.

OR

Furnaces provide a standard up to -30% discount, when the ability is activated all level 3 furnaces increase that discount up to -50%


It's also possible to simply tie this system to Industry, where furnaces normally provide a discount up to -30% and every level 3 furnace on which industry has been cast increases it to up to -50%
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Smeargollum

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Re: Isengard Balance Discussion
« Antwort #21 am: 14. Dez 2020, 16:14 »
Having the full upgrade discount of 50% only with an active ability by the furnace sounds really instresting to me and it is probably the best solution as it nerfs the discount but doesn't put it on standard level either.
I personally don't think it would be good if you would only get the discount by the active ability and without it not at all but having a base discount of 30% which can be incresased sounds good to me. I also think that tieing it to the industry spell would be really nice as that would allow the other player to snipe the furnace on which the Isengard player used it on and with that lower the discount.


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FG15

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Re: Isengard Balance Discussion
« Antwort #22 am: 14. Dez 2020, 16:26 »
Increasing or interacting with a discount at all is quite restricted. The only thing that really can be done is to activate a discout when a certain condition is met like with the current furnaces. Influencing the maximum discount on the other hand is not possible without a lot of workarounds and side effects.

But a system that can be possible is the following:
-every Lvl3 Furnace reduces the cost by 5% up 60% if you have build 12.
-there is 1 or more active abilities somewhere that double that reduction for some time (can be infinite)

Also, please mind that if the discount is only temporarily higher, players will just wait with buying upgrades until the higher discount is active and nothing has changed, except that the player has to do an extra click and wait a bit before purchasing upgrades.

Halbarad

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Re: Isengard Balance Discussion
« Antwort #23 am: 14. Dez 2020, 20:53 »
1. Rohan traitors. It would be really easy to nerf Isengart without changing its qualities by changing the spell. Warg Riders would also benefit from that change since they would get much more important for Isengart (right now, nobody uses them when he has reached lg). One bataillion of cav would still be good in my opinion. It could also be mixed up with Traitors that could come as one bataillon of swordmen. In exchange they could get an ability that weakens enemy soldiers since the traitors know their fighting style or something. Because then we would have Wild Men vs buildings, Grishnak vs heroes and traitors vs units (including pikes).
2. Furnace discount. One possibility to nerf it could be to combine the full discount with an ability like this: "Furnaces give a lot higher discount on upgrades when reached Level 3. However, every Furnance additionally raises the count of buildings that influence inflation".
It could be activated in the citadel after getting the central spell, maybe replacing "Burning Forges". Of course (actively or passive) switching back to normal inflation and upgrade discount would only be possible after a while of waiting, like one or more minutes later.
3. Another way to nerf Isengart could be to change the discount from mineshafts, e. g. they could raise the recruitment speed from Uruk pits. Since Isengart already has one really strong discount it doesn't really need another one in my opinion. That way, Furnaces wouldn't have to be changed.

Seleukos I.

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Re: Isengard Balance Discussion
« Antwort #24 am: 22. Dez 2020, 12:00 »
Well, first of all, I agree that Isengard is possibly the strongest faction right now.
However, I don’t think the -50% upgrade discount is the problem with Isengard. Sure, having this much of a discount is very strong, but it kicks in rather late in the game (you need eco lvl 3 after all) and Isengard – as the most “industrial” faction in the game – is, imo, supposed to be very strong in the lg, but weaker in the eg and mg.

So I think the problem with Isengard it that it is so super strong in the mg already. This as a couple of reasons, I’d like to talk about:

First of all, the minions of the white hand (even tho I don’t think they are the biggest problem):
This spell is very good in the mg (when you first use it) because of the sheer mass of units it gives you. Later in the game, once you opponent got a larger army and heroes/upgrades, it’s much weaker, but in the mg it is definitely very good.
To nerf it I would suggest to lower the number of riders in each battalion of the cav summon from 15 to 10. With this change the cavalry summon could still do a lot of damage vs an unprepared enemy, but at the same time the cav can be killed faster.
 Also I think the building damage of the wildmen summon might be too high. This spell, combined with the Palantir, allows you to attack and most of the time destroy enemy outposts (such as the exile camp, Dol Guldur/Minas Morgul, Dunedain etc.) without much chances for your enemy to defend against it. If he doesn’t already have cavalry standing next to the outpost to charge the wildmen immediately they will most likely end up killing the outpost.  This means I would like to see the wildmen’s damage bonus vs buildings decreased from 50% to maybe 30%-20%. In order to not nerf them too much I could imagine to change their damage type from SLASH to URUK, to make them a bit better when it come to fighting enemy units in the later game.

The other two points, which are, imo, mainly responsible for Isengard’s OP-ness, are the very good eco combined with the very cost efficient units.
I think it’s safe to say that Isengard has the best economy in the game. The main reason for that are the four spellbook powers industry, devastation, the central spell and the summoned lumbermill, even tho the latter two aren’t used a lot.
Also Isengard’s units, the uruk hai, are probably the most cost efficient units in the game (except for Mordor orcs, I guess  [uglybunti]). They are better than normal standard units (such as Gondor soldiers, thrallmasters or Lorien borderguards), but they don’t really cost that much more, thanks to the mineshaft discounts. In fact, pikemen and crossbows even cost less than Gondor spearmen and archers, once you got the mineshaft discount (and uruk swords only cot 10 more than Gondorsoldiers). Now you could of course argue that you can discount Gondor infantry as well (with the taxes and townhouses), but that’s not realistic in a competitive game. I have never seen anyone go for the townhouse discount for normal units, unless combined with Denethor (and even then I doubt it’s worth it).

These two points combined mean Isengard as a over-average economy and at the same time over-average cost efficient units. The logical consequence of this is, that Isengard is op.

Now there are a two ways we could try to fix this issue:

1)   Nerf Isengard’s economy.
2)   Nerf the cost efficiency of Uruk Hai.

Nerfing the economy would definitely make sense, but we also have to keep in mind that a strong economy is one of the core-aspects of Isengard as a faction. Just like Mordor has the free orcs and the centralised levelling system with Sauron, Isengard has a strong economy and cheap upgrades.
I personally would prefer the second option, nerf the Uruk’s efficiency.

Here’s my suggestion:
Uruk Hai (swords pikes and crossbows) should be made more expensive (400, 500 and 500), but at the same time get better fighting stats.

On paper Uruks (swords) are already 50% more expensive than their Gondor (or other faction) counterpart while only being slightly better stats-wise (Uruks have, as far as I know, 15% more hp and damage), but this difference in cost gets pretty much nullified by the discount. However, if Uruks were even more expensive on paper, then they also would be actually more expensive than Gondorunits, for example.


So to summarise my suggestions:
1)   summoned cav battalions from 15 to 10 men each
2)   summoned wildmen’s bonus damage vs building from 50% to 30% (+maybe changed damage type)
3)   Uruk’s cost from 300, 400, 400 to 400, 500, 500
4)   More hp and damage for uruks (if they now have 15% more than Gondorsoldiers I could imagine giving them 30% more than Gondorsoldiers)

What are your thoughts on that?

Best regards,
Seleukos



Halbarad

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Re: Isengard Balance Discussion
« Antwort #25 am: 22. Dez 2020, 12:21 »
So, first of all, your suggestions are going into the same direction as mine. We both want less traitor cav and we both think that Isengart can get its Uruk Hai pretty cheap. So here is what I think about your suggestions:

Zitat
1)   summoned cav battalions from 15 to 10 men each
I also suggested that a few times, so it also sounds good to me (Quick reminder: My alternate suggestion was to summon one battalion on horses and one as swordsmen)
Zitat
2)   summoned wildmen’s bonus damage vs building from 50% to 30% (+maybe changed damage type)
Sounds reasonable to me.
Zitat
3)   Uruk’s cost from 300, 400, 400 to 400, 500, 500
4)   More hp and damage for uruks (if they now have 15% more than Gondorsoldiers I could imagine giving them 30% more than Gondorsoldiers)
I do think that my suggestion (mineshafts = faster recruitment speed for Uruk Hai instead of lower costs) adresses the problem much better. Your suggestion would raise Uruk Hai costs but also raise the total discount per battalion given by mineshafts while also making the Uruk Hai stronger. I think their strength right now is pretty fine and to just take away the cost reduction would nerf them really well.
« Letzte Änderung: 23. Dez 2020, 00:21 von Halbarad »

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Re: Isengard Balance Discussion
« Antwort #26 am: 22. Dez 2020, 14:55 »
Making the wildmen better against units is exactly what caused the problems in the past where you just throw all summons against the enemy army and annihilate it. If anything, their damage to units should go down even further to differentiate the different summons.

We can nerf Isengard's economy while still keeping the theme intact - one of the problems with it is that it affects the entire game, not just the heavy Uruks. It makes Isengard rather forgiving to play, because losing heroes (which is already difficult with Lurtz and Ugluk running around, let's be honest) isn't as terrible and economy upgrades aren't necessary until late in the game (or at all with the central spell). It also reduces the importance of a solid earlygame, which is one of my biggest gripes with Isengard currently - it is too easy to catch up after a terrible early game.

Seleukos I.

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Re: Isengard Balance Discussion
« Antwort #27 am: 22. Dez 2020, 17:28 »
Zitat
Making the wildmen better against units is exactly what caused the problems in the past where you just throw all summons against the enemy army and annihilate it. If anything, their damage to units should go down even further to differentiate the different summons.
Yes, that makes sense, I guess. My idea to change the damage type was only meant in case they would be to weak otherwise, but I agree with what you said.
Nontheless I still think that destroying important outposts is too easy with the wildmen. In the games I played/saw it was succesfull most of the time, and even if you should fail, it's not that much of an investment wasted (only the palantir and the wildmen summon).

 I also agree with what you said concerning the eco, especially the early game thing^^


I don't really like the idea of removing the uruk discount in general, as Halbarad suggested.
Isengard is supposed to have a rather weak early game(at least in terms of head on fighting, as their eg units are more harassing units), so Isengard needs to catch up in actual fighting units once they got their Uruk-upgrade. Right now that's to easy for Isengard, as Elendil said, but without any Uruk discount (and less mapcontrol, as Isen looses mapcontrol at th end of the eg most of the time) it might be too hard.

And even with the nerf to the eco spells, I still like the idea of pushing Uruks more towards elite units (cost wise). In general I'd like to see other unit smade more expensive (and better) as well, such as Lorien or dwarven standart units. But that's another topic :D

Halbarad

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Re: Isengard Balance Discussion
« Antwort #28 am: 23. Dez 2020, 00:45 »
I think Isengart would still rule the lategame because of the -60% discount for Upgrade-costs, the extra upgrade (Uruk Captain). It would still represent Isengart Industry very well.
Isengart has a decent Earlygame when it doesn't have to face enemy cav because of wild men harassment. Now we had a few suggestions to make wild men pikes available (through a cheaper Wulfgar e. g.), so that could be fixed. Along with this, we would get a decent EG against every other faction. A midgame that would be a bit more difficult to play because of Machinery of War Upgrade and no price reduction until then. But it would make way for a very strong Lategame with Isengarts really strong economy and strong discount on upgrades.

Agree with Elendil. Damage of Wild Men from the spell could still be reduced. If necessary the money-steal could be raised.

AmosVogel

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Re: Isengard Balance Discussion
« Antwort #29 am: 2. Jan 2021, 23:21 »
Hello, Edain fellows!

What I see is that everyone complains how strong uruks are, but rising their prices will make them even much more expensive than Rivendell soldiers, because of the battalion size:

Rivendell swordsmen 5 units for $500.00
Uruk swordsmen 15 units for $800.00 or $1,000.00, maybe?

What can be done is simple, using the mighty economy for mighty upgrades! How? we all know isengards early game is diffficult, but the more we wait, the easier to buy the machinery of war wich is only $1,000.00

Why dont rise the price of upgrades and tech?

Machinery of war 1: $1,000.00 to $2,000.00
Machinery of war 2: $1,500.00 to $3,000.00

Forged blades: $1,500.00
Heavy armor: $1,500.00

SteelWorks: Everything to $2,500.00 each

And the battalions each upgrade to $900.00, so the furnace effect truly drives the tech to disscount.

All of this is based in on scene and one scene only:

Saruman: "I want them armed and ready to march within two weeks!"

Orc: "But my Lord, there are too many! They cannot all be armed in time, we don't have the means."

Saruman: "Build a dam, block the stream, work the furnaces night and day."

Orc: "We don't have enough fuel to feed the fires."

Yes, Isengards economy is the very best, because its also the most expansionist; the only true industry of Middle Earth yes, but at the same time is the smallest faction of all, thus their upgrades must be the most expensive,  because they deplete forests very fast, driving the player for an agressive expantion:

Saruman: "The Forest of Fangorn lies on our doorstep. Burn it."

Isengards economy will still be the migthiest, but also will be more taxing.

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