I´m sorry for letting you wait one week, but now I finally have time to tranbslate this suggestion into English and thus bringing it back to it´s roots.
I´m quite unsure if I can count the German and the English votes together. If it´s not allowed, please forgive me:
Suggestion improvement and visualisation of the troll-upgrades:"What is this new devilry?"This idea is originally from
Azog the Defiler, who allowed me to modificate, specificate and translate it. After some discussion in the German section I decided to translate it back to reach out to more people...
At first: This suggestion is first and foremost a graphical suggestion. The changes in the troll-gameplay should be marginal, but the small things do matter aswell.
The trolls and their upgrade-system are for me one of the most interesting and atmospheric concepts in the Mordor-game, but in my oppinion they get a raw deal at the moment. Of course this has reasons:
1. Trolls are single units and those are always
somehow difficult to play or to keep alive. On the other hand they are quite easy to counter, because they have r weaknesses: Archers, Spears and Heroes with high single-target damage (for example Aragorn or Faramir (bow)).
Furthermore a troll always attract attention and can be picked out quit easily.
Therefore the player very often decides that it´s not worth the time or ressources to buy expensive upgrades.
This weakens the gameplay and drifts to the brainless orc-spam, which should be avoided in my oppinion.
2. The
system is very laborious and micro-intense: First you need Saurons influence, then every troll needs an armour and finally you can choose a weapon, which takes a lot of time and micro...
Originally I planned to ease the system by integrarting the armour-upgrade into the weapon-upgrade, but in the German section I got a lot oh head wind due to the lack of freedom to combinate different armour and weapon.
At least the armour-upgrade will make sense now, because you can get different choices and it shouldn´t be to op, because those alternatives are very limitted.
3. Even with upgrades trolls are at the moment
kind of dyfunctional:
As mass-slayers they are to weak against spears, as siege to weak against arrows and as hero-killer to weak against certain heroes.
I don´t think they don´t work at all, but it could be a little better.
The intention is
neither to strengthen nor to weaken the trolls, but simply to allow deeper specialisation and variety, without changing everything.
The normal armour-upgrade changes it´s name:
Improvisational armour: The armour is only a bit weaker as at the moment, but also a bit cheaper just to balance the alternatives.
Most of the change at this point is graphically: It should look somehow improvised only containing out of a helmet and some armour-pieces, not a full fitting armour as at the moment. If possible they could use random modells so the trolls don´t look like clones. The siege-trolls at Minas Tirith are a good orientation:
The plan is to unlock specialised armour-alternatives depending on your choice of an outpost, which allow you to eliminate one option to counter your trolls. Trolls who already got an armour are let out to make things simple. The domain-armour is a bit more expensive, than the improvised one and doesn´t provide more protection against the other kinds of damage, but taking out one counter option should be worth the extra ressources.
The system should be explained either in the troll-cage or at the armour-palantir of the trolls, so the player knows the different options, before he decides which outpost he will build. This slot could be named
Armour of the domains.
But now let´s get specific:The Morgul-armour strengthens the troll
against archers, and therfore his only weaknisses are now spears and certain heroes. In case of the hammer-troll it forces the opponent out of his fortress to kill those nasty trolls.
The presented style of armour fits quite nicely:
The open and wide helmet catches arrows from different directions and those big spikes help aswell. The big shoulder-plates also make sense against arrows from above.
It also fits into canon, because Minas Morgul prepared a long time for the siege of Minas Tirith and of course they knew that those different rings are perfect for archers.
The armour strengthens the troll
against spears and pikes. Thus the player can send in the trolls into big crowds of enimies without fearing there might be some spears in it and therfore losing the troll instantly. This is of course very important for club-trolls.
Again the armour fits somehow, because it primarilly covers face and belly and so you would have some difficulties to find spots for your spear to hurt him.
This design is inspired by the troll at the Black Gate, who is at the moment a hero in the mod. But I am
in favor of striking out Mollok for
Mordor has a lot of heroes and enough mass-slayers: Witch-king, Ring-Sauron, Gorthaur (especially as a werewolf), in a way Shagrat and Shelob and of course the normal trolls.
One could argue, that all of them, besides Sauron and the witch-king are no real mass-slayers and those are difficult to get early, but this is the case for most mass-slayers as Gandalf and Saruman and Mordor doesn´t need those as much as other factions, because they normally have the higher numbers.
Besides that Mollok is not canon (tabletop-interpretation) and is already seen very seldom.
This also would make Bill, Tom and Bert more unique as the only troll-hero in the mod of course besides the self-created heroes.
The Morannon-armour is
against heroes and units with high single-target damage (Beorniner) and can be used if the player gets a
normal outpost.
Again the motto is "form follows function": The forearms are well armoured and the lower belly aswell. This of course makes a lot sense to combine with the sword-upgrade.
The sword-troll isn´t seen very often seen at the moment. To change this, I would give him an additional abbility:
Duelling: The troll can paralyse or slow down (if paralysing is to powerfull) a target.
This is also inspired by the scene at the Black Gate: At 4:18 syou can see Aragorn pausing for a moment as he hears the troll behind him roaring:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17_ImViPryQOf course I know that PJ originally wanted to make a Aragorn vs Sauron fight, but it fits very nicely in my concept...
With this the sword-troll especially when upgraded with Morannon-armour should be a usefull tool against heroes, because Mordor is missing a real Hero-killer if I have it right in the head.
I hope this concepts will be seen as an improvement for the troll-gam,eplay and the general atmosphere of the Mordor-faction, but I am very open for usefull critique...
Yours sincerely
Isildurs Bane
In Favor:
1. Halbarad
2. Slawek56703
3. Firimar