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Autor Thema: Angmar Balance Discussion  (Gelesen 42650 mal)

Lord of Mordor

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Angmar Balance Discussion
« am: 3. Apr 2016, 01:07 »
In this thread, you can discuss balancing issues with the Angmar faction. If you feel a balance topic is so big it deserves its own thread, you're free to create one, but for smaller points this thread might be useful.
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Hamanathnath

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Re: Angmar Balance Discussion
« Antwort #1 am: 4. Apr 2016, 14:13 »
Good day :)

Now I know it says if the balance topic is big, making a thread is an option, but this post is really about Angmar balance in general, and not one specific unit or ability so I think it should go in this thread. 

So in my opinion, Angmar is a bit overpowered in this version of Edain.  Now there are a lot of reasons for this, but I'm still fairly new to the faction and how exactly to play it, because of how diverse it is.  But my first reason is fairly obvious. 

The Heroes:  This is the most powerful part of Angmar in my opinion.  Credit to the Edain Team here, all of these heroes are very well made, and have very good abilities.  But the problem is....... They are ALL very well made, and have very good abilities. And there is 9 of them.  It's like the Fellowship of the Iron Crown.  This gives Angmar such a huge advantage.  The only heroes that die decently easily are Drauglin, being a scout hero, and Helegwen, being a ranged hero.  Every other hero starts with 4500 or 5500 health if I remember that correctly.  And because of their numbers, they can really gang up on enemy heroes, and don't really have much of a threat of dieing, especially because..... Well read my next topic.  So I would suggest right now to lower the stats of the heroes a little bit.  Not to much to make them too hard to keep alive, but enough so they aren't so strong when together.

Freezing:  Angmar has so many ways of freezing the enemy.  Sorcerers can do it, Helegwen can do it, Zafragor can do it to heroes (which doesn't help the Hero problem mentioned earlier), and the biggest problem, Durmarth can do it to everyone with every attack.  There just can't be this many in my opinion.  Durmarth is the one who I think doesn't need it at all, because he is already a great hero, so removing his ability to freeze with every attack would help a lot.  But Angmar has so many Crowd Control methods, especially in the SpellBook, so another might need to be removed.

The Spellbook:  I really like how these problem transition into another :).

Anyways, back on topic.  The Spellbook is SO strong for Angmar.  I've seen Angmar kill entire Armies just using freezing and the Spellbook together to kill entire armies.  Fellwind work perfectly with the other powers because it clumps everyone together.  Frozen Land does pretty much the he same thing, but also doesn't let heroes or units escape.  Snowbind makes attacking Angmar such a pain.  And the strongest power Angmar has is Spread Plague, Which kills, not weakens, but kills anything that is not heavily Armoured elites or heroes.  Spread Plague brought down my army of Fully Upgraded Uruk-Hai down to the point where they almost die.  I can't even imagine to factions that rely on weaker units such as Mordor.  Now I do realize that balance for a power such as this is very hard to find, because too strong and it will be always used, and too weak and it will be never used, but if you can find it, it would be much appreciated, because right now it is stronger then Avalanche, which is also a very good Power.  Also, I would recommend making Frozen Land and SnowBind cost 3 points each.  The Orc summon can stay at 2.

The Troll Summon (can't remember the name) has a very weird balance.  The Hill Trolls themselves are incredibly easy to kill because they have 1400 health each, but Rogash is extremely strong if used well.  So I would recommend giving the Hill Trolls a lot more health.  As for Rogash, I'm going to need to test him out a bit more, but right now, he is really what Mollock should be.  But maybe I'm a bit biased, so I will test him more before I can say if he needs to change. 

Well that is pretty much it in terms of the major things.  Just a few other notes.

-Angmar is hard to play defending fortresses like Minas Tirith due to lack of settlements, which means not leveling up your production buildings.  So maybe those maps need to allow the carts to spawn from the Citadel.

-Wolf Riders are too hard to get because of the upgrade you need to purchase.  I know that it is used to Angmar can't rush them so quickly, but in my opinion, it also makes them not worth getting. 

-I think Thralls should be able to use Banner Carriers.  Not much else to say about that. 

-The Mill's discount just seems inferior to the Smelter's discount, as wolfs cost barely anything already, and upgrading your Men of Carn Dum is pretty key to winning. 

-On camp maps, the Angmar base has barely any room in it because of how big some of the buildings, such as the Hall of the King's Men and Dark Iron Forge. 

And that's it for now.  I would like to hear feedback from everyone, to see if I'm missing everything, or if I'm wrong about something.

Greetings, Hamanathnath
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EDIT:  Forgot 2 small things.  Stronghold of the Iron Crown also doesn't work on Fortress Maps when defending, which makes it useless there.  And also, while this has nothing to do with balance, but can Rogash have his Rise of the Witch King voice back?  I won't mind if he keeps the cave troll voice, but I really liked his old (if also a bit corny) lines :)
« Letzte Änderung: 4. Apr 2016, 14:29 von Hamanathnath »

Draco100000

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Re: Angmar Balance Discussion
« Antwort #2 am: 9. Apr 2016, 02:02 »
Im completely agree with haman but I would like to add a few things.

1 Mages are way too powerfull and the idea to allow them to use all powers only purchasing 1 ( which is overpowered only paying 100 you get other more expensive powers) but also making much more easier their management. I think they should only be able to use 1 power no more, and dmg of death rain ( dunno the exact name) is too hig can decimate entire armies.

2 the stun of the mages is supposed to make enemie and alli units invulnerable, but they can still get poison dmg so corpse rain and plague powers ( from spellbokk and gulzar still damaging heavily the troops, way too powerfull.

3Then we go to the main units: Hillmen feels really weak and waste of money keeping in mind that each slave master costs 200 and each sumoneable unit cost a strandard price( you end up getting hillmen pikemen, orcs or axethrowers at the same price than other factions and the dmg buff you can get with settlements is not enough at all to compesate their high cost. I think reducing the price of the slave masters to 100 would be a good move to increase the value of this angmar units.

4 Kingsmen reduction cost should be given by some kind of farm or settlement and not from a hero. I find too necessary to use monamarth when he is 1 of the worsts heros for ealry game, but if you get him too late you wont be able to get elite troops and sooner or later other enemies will end up destroying your armie ( Unless you manage well mages and wights, i think this 2 units are the actual key of the faction, all other units feels like free orcs, just to use them as wall for my true power...)

5 In general all heros are too good on their roles all abilities feels very good ( no useless abilities or medium utility abilities) all are really powerfull and can change how a battle ends. Specially powerfull heros Zaphragor and Gulzar, both can destroy big number of enemies with their firsts abilities. Hwaldar stats are too high also.

ringbearer

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Re: Angmar Balance Discussion
« Antwort #3 am: 9. Apr 2016, 08:48 »
Im completely agree with haman but I would like to add a few things.

1 Mages are way too powerfull and the idea to allow them to use all powers only purchasing 1 ( which is overpowered only paying 100 you get other more expensive powers) but also making much more easier their management. I think they should only be able to use 1 power no more, and dmg of death rain ( dunno the exact name) is too hig can decimate entire armies.


Well, mages are able to use all the powers only after you build tower of sorcery. You need 1200 for outpost, 500 for tower of sorcery , 500 for mage and 100/200/400 for one power which after this unlock all the others. It's 2300 resources for a unit which can be easily killed by any cav.

I agree with point 2 and 4  :)



Draco100000

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Re: Angmar Balance Discussion
« Antwort #4 am: 9. Apr 2016, 12:02 »
Easily killed by cav? with that slows? Just freeze them and poison them is not that hard, you just have to maintaint them behind your armie. Also you can slow the caval, stun and flank it with your armie. GG easy 2 battallions of mages can make hillmen stronger than an entire upgraded armie of gondor ( plus all armor and dmg reductions, hillmen looks like elite units)

Even expending that amount of money corpse rain combined with other abilities is too usefull, just combining it with the abilitie that heals your units when the enemie units die is like a massive wizard blast that actually kill almost everything and maintain your armie alive, and just using 2 abilities. Mages are very cheap to how usefull they are. They can be limited in numbers to 2 for example and increased cost.

Another way to make them weaker would be increase enormously the time of respawn of the acolytes so you have to wait a lot of time to use again corpse rain or freezing that requires lot of acolytes but you can still using from time to time healing and slow down.

Even limited to 2 battallions they will still destroying entire armies. I dont understand their role in the faction, they are too powerfull and adds angmar unnecesary stuff. More slows more poison dmg...

I dont know i feel this mages really cool but really unbalanced too.

PD: 2300 resorces is poor quantity of money spècially with the amount of extra cash you get from the builders that upgrade buildings. You dont have to expend money in upgrade this buildings while you are also able to get 250-500 money per builder. Also you are not expending 2300 resources in 1 units, you get an outpost with the tactical advantage it means as well you  get instantly a builder that gives you 500 resources that make the real cost of the outpost 700, so no I cannot agree with you.
« Letzte Änderung: 9. Apr 2016, 12:07 von Draco100000 »

BalkanLuka

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Re: Angmar Balance Discussion
« Antwort #5 am: 9. Apr 2016, 14:06 »
Greatly support the opinion of Hammananth and of Draco in certain points.

1- In the current game i absolutley feel discouraged to use wolf riders because it is far more easier and useful to use black numenorians with a lv3 baracks, the required upgrade for the wolf cavalry, though preventing early wolf spam also makes them apear in late game where their strategic impact and utility is greatly reduced, thus forcing the player to only use the viable option and that is the black numenorian army.

The player should have an alternative in mid-game, should i chose a mass thrall army that can't be upgraded but encompanied by fast wolf riders, or a smaller thrall army folowed by upgraded black numenorieans. Thus i suggest removing the wolf breeding requirement for the Wolf riders, and just adding the lv.2 building reqirement, acompanied by small nerfs if recuired.

2-Tribute carts, the speed of spawning is fine, the resource bonus is fine, but the thing that bothers me is how fast you can level up your buildings,especially to lv3. As other factions you must folow a cycle- make economic buildings/make army to defend them/upgrade economy/upgrade ilitary bases to lv.3 , but Angmar does not folow that rule, which is fine for diversivication but should be toned down a bit.

My sugestion is this, ONE tribute cart is needed for lv. 2 building, but TWO for lv.3 This would make the use of tribute carts more strategic in planing your base and units that you want to be faster produced, requiring prioratising but not severely hampering you because it is only for lv.3 ,thus late-game, giving the choice to angmar players to specificly target the unit tactic they want ,be it the numenorian,sorcerror, werewolf or advanced sieage and upgrades, and not having all of them at once. In the current situation in more than one multiplayer match  i was saved by sorrcerers killing even cavalry charges by simply stunlock-soul freezing and later mass poisoning them,only to be finished off by minor thrall masses. The problem is i did this too early, i had a lv.3 Temple of twilight and lv.3Barracks, while my enemy a lv2 barracks and stable, so he could neither counter me with mass units nor quick production.



Lord of Mordor

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Re: Angmar Balance Discussion
« Antwort #6 am: 10. Apr 2016, 02:24 »
Thanks for your suggestions, everyone! :) We'll be severely toning down many of Angmar's AoE spells and increasing the cost of the sorcerers while decreasing the strength of most of their abilities for the next patch.

We also looked at several heroes and have extensively reworked Dûrmarth in particular. He is still very good at killing enemy heroes and protecting your own, but will have much less crowd control (no freezing at all), so you have to combine him with some of Angmar's other options for maximum efficiency. Furthermore, Mornamarth and Gulzar will now require the Men of Carn Dûrm or Sorcerer Outpost respectively so you have access to less heroes in your base.

We haven't changed the levelling system yet, but I like the idea of requiring two carts for level 3 and moving the wolf upgrade to level one.

Regarding some of your other, smaller points: Thrall masters can't be much cheaper without also getting weaker. Their units are similiar in strength to other basic infantry, and replenished for free on top of that. That is also why they can't use banner carriers - the thrall master is himself a banner carrier.

The mill discount's main point is discounting Werewolves, which I think can be very powerful because they're so expensive.
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Hamanathnath

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Re: Angmar Balance Discussion
« Antwort #7 am: 10. Apr 2016, 03:35 »
I'm glad to hear that the AoE spells will be toned down.  :)

About Sorcerer's, I did not mention them in my original post because I didn't use them enough to have an opinion on them.  The main problem I have with them right now is their Command Point cost, which is dreadfully low.  I think it needs to be at least 45 CP per group. 

Moving Mornamarth and Gulzar to the Outpost upgrades sound like a great idea.  I think their price should be evened out because of this (so 2000 for each instead of 1800 and 2200).

I'm also happy about Durmarth losing his abilities to freeze armies.  It was just was too strong. 

Concerning mills, I know that the main point is to discount Werewolves.  The problem I have with this is that making Mills is more of a gamble then making Smelters.  If the enemy make a Pike based Army, which a lot of the Factions do, Werewolves aren't the best option.  But Men of Carn Dum are always part of an Angmar Army late in the game.  And even if you do want to use Werewolves, generally making too many of them isn't worth it, not only because enough pikes can ruin that plan, but also you have the chance of really feeding your enemies heroes with Experience.  I'm not saying Werewolves are a bad unit, because they are strong.  But like every Monster in the game, they have a big weakness, and because of this, making a lot of them isn't a good idea, making the discount to them not as useful as the Smelter discount.

Greetings,  Hamanathnath

BalkanLuka

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Re: Angmar Balance Discussion
« Antwort #8 am: 10. Apr 2016, 10:39 »
I just read Lord of Mordors response concerning the Sorcerers and the intent to weaken them, im fine with that but please reconsider increasing their price, i think their price is fine, if it would be bigger it would be higly discouragng to use them, weak+expensive is not popular, instead maybe you can leave their price the same, but increase the upgrade cost of Soul freeze,Corpse rain and Well of souls, who are the main reason for their power and not the sorrcerer itself who has only support abilities if left un-upgraded.

Second either increase their CP cost as other suggested, or increase production time, so if  a player wants more sorcerers,then he must focus tribut to them, while losing the posibility of creating faster thralls and wolves.

As for the ability strenght i think they are ok, havent noticed that they are ultra effectiive, the only problem is how fast you get them- cost, time, building lv. shuld weaken them and not directly the sorcerror.

ringbearer

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Re: Angmar Balance Discussion
« Antwort #9 am: 10. Apr 2016, 10:57 »
Furthermore, Mornamarth and Gulzar will now require the Men of Carn Dûrm or Sorcerer Outpost respectively so you have access to less heroes in your base.

I don't think it's a good idea, I can't think of anyone who would choose Gulzar insted of Mornamarth. Mornamarth is strongly linked to Man of Carn Dum, makes them cheaper and more powerfull while Gulzar has his own accolytes, he doesn't need sorcerers and they don't need him. Time will tell but I bet it will end up with no Gulzar at all in games.

Draco100000

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Re: Angmar Balance Discussion
« Antwort #10 am: 10. Apr 2016, 11:45 »
Furthermore, Mornamarth and Gulzar will now require the Men of Carn Dûrm or Sorcerer Outpost respectively so you have access to less heroes in your base.

I don't think it's a good idea, I can't think of anyone who would choose Gulzar insted of Mornamarth. Mornamarth is strongly linked to Man of Carn Dum, makes them cheaper and more powerfull while Gulzar has his own accolytes, he doesn't need sorcerers and they don't need him. Time will tell but I bet it will end up with no Gulzar at all in games.
I think i would use it depending in the situation, if my enemie is a spam-faction I would use gulzgar because his great poison dmg. If my enemie is armoured and lower in troops i wiould choose men of carn dum because sooner or later i will have to use men of carn dum and the reduction cost is really needed.


In my opinion the hero who should be recrutable in the outpost is durmath, I see monamarth too important hero to be in an outpost.




About Sorcerer's, I did not mention them in my original post because I didn't use them enough to have an opinion on them.  The main problem I have with them right now is their Command Point cost, which is dreadfully low.  I think it needs to be at least 45 CP per group. 


I would say even 120 cp. There are units like dwarven hunters who take this amount of cp and cannot kill entire armies. As well elite archers so mages should be in this group of high cp cost units.
« Letzte Änderung: 10. Apr 2016, 15:27 von Ealendril »

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Re: Angmar Balance Discussion
« Antwort #11 am: 10. Apr 2016, 19:08 »
I agree with moving Wolf Breeding to level 1, because the wolf riders are an early game unit, who become ineffective in late game. I also heavily agree with requiring 2 tribute carts to make a level 3 building.

Agree with all of Hamans points in his first post.

I think moving Mornamarth and Gulzar to the outpost is a good idea, but I have a problem with Mornamarth. It takes a huge amount of time to get him to level 8, I think that the discount ability should be swapped out with another ability and unlock at a sooner level. The lack of discount really makes Men of Carn Dum less valuable until very late game, at least for me. I find that Hillmen spam combined with the Hillmen settlements can do a huge amount of damage combined with wights. Which brings me to something not brought up.

WIGHTS! Holy crap these things are strong, they just don't die. They're like berserkers on steroids. Something needs to be done to nerf them, either cost or something else, because right now you don't even need to make any barrow wight lairs for discounts. Just spam those Hillmen or Orcs until you have an outpost, then make the wight lair on that. Once you have 5-10 wights and Karsh you can take down upgraded armies of elite units with nothing but hillmen and wights. Now, with some AoE power nerfs this might not be as true, but I still think that wights are incredibly cost effective right now, probably the best single style unit do to their health steal.

Finally, I have an idea for Plague. I agree that this is an extremely strong power, and if we look in the lore it basically is what kills off the last resistance in Arnor. So I think that Avalanche and Spread Plague should be swapped, plague for 10 points and avalanche for 7. Avalanche is good, but I feel like its not quite worth it as a 10 point power, while plague feels overpowered as a 7 point power.

So those are my thoughts :)
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Garlodur

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Re: Angmar Balance Discussion
« Antwort #12 am: 12. Apr 2016, 12:44 »
The ET's decision to lock Mornamarth and Gulzar behind the Outpost upgrades to the Men of Carn Dûm and the Sorcerer's Tower respectively, seems like a good way to balance out the amount of heroes recruitable from the fortress.

The reasoning behind Mornamarth I see as that you never recruit him without choosing for creating an army of Men of Carn Dûm, just like you want him to support those Men once you start your army to focus on the late game elite units they are.
Gulzar, also makes sense, although I agree he seems to work more on his own. But then again, all those sorcerers really do work on their own, using the acolytes. I agree that these units need to be nerfed: the most significant changes would be to increasing their recruitment time and the amount of Command Points they need: either to 45 as they are supporting/single units (comparable to Battle Wagons, Beornings and Uruk Berserkers) or 120 because they actually have the abilities to support a large army (like heroic units such as the Dol Amroth Knights, Minas Morgul Knights etc.).

Concerning Dûrmarth: would it make sense to lock his passive Seals behind the heroes that he receives them from? I was thinking of a few options:

1) As soon as these heroes (Witch-King, Karsh, Mornamarth, and Gulzar) are recruited, the passives take action respectively for which heroes are on the battlefield.
2) A combination of the first option with the requierement of levelling up Dûrmarth to specific levels.
3) Only giving the passives once these heroes reach a certain level, such as level 10. In this case, the passives should remain with Dûrmarth after those heroes die.

I understand that Dûrmarth's progress as a hero is intrinsically linked to the mightier heroes of Angmar (I imagine this is how the Fan-fiction was written?) so I believe there needs to be a more sensible way of implementing this. In addition to this, it allows the team to reduce Dûrmarth's cost and attributes to resemble more a hero that is moderately strong in Early Game, relatively weak in Mid Game, but reasonably strong in Late Game protecting other heroes and slaying enemy heroes.

Hamanathnath

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Re: Angmar Balance Discussion
« Antwort #13 am: 12. Apr 2016, 13:48 »
The reasoning behind Mornamarth I see as that you never recruit him without choosing for creating an army of Men of Carn Dûm, just like you want him to support those Men once you start your army to focus on the late game elite units they are.
On the contrary, I would argue, at least in 4.3, that getting Mornamarth before you get your Men of Carn Dum is actually a better idea.  The reason behind this is Blood and Iron, while it does strengthen from nearby Men of Carn Dum,  it also hurts them.  But even without Men of Carn Dum nearby, Blood and Iron can kill hordes of Weak units if used properly (again, this was in 4.3, not completely sure if this is still the case in 4.3.1).

As for all your other suggestions, especially on Durmarth, I would recommend playing 4.3.1 if you haven't already, where a lot of changes took place concerning Durmarth and Sorcerers.

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Re: Angmar Balance Discussion
« Antwort #14 am: 14. Apr 2016, 14:59 »
Hmm, I have a few points I wanted to bring about.

1: The Obelisk
How much is the debuff, the cooldown reduction and its health/armour?
Spam heavy factions (Mordor in particular) suffer greatly from Obelisks, with only Carc's ravens being a similar ability. However, the ravens are temporary and also serve as scouts. The obelisk being permanent and with a good amount of health, I feel that the obelisk should be made weaker with also a smaller debuff range.
2: I discussed this in the internal forums already, but the Carn-Dûm Pikemen's passive ability is really overpowered. How are you supposed to counter them if all attacks, even ranged, reflect portions back to the aggressors? Not to begin about how heinous the amounts of damage heroes take while trying to deal with them. Either nerf it drastically, or change it. This ability is quite toxic in design.
3: The Slayers from Mount Gram summon is very powerful. I propose it to be toned down, because I had it kill heroes with ease and it summons four hordes instead of the usual 3, for only 2 CP. Either one less horde or 1 extra CP.

We need to take a good look at all those abilities that make Angmar so incredibly powerful, especially with the Men of Carn-Dûm and their amazing abilities and the support they get.

Placing Mornamarth in the Citadel was a good change. I hope we can keep doing these kinds of changes and fine-tune the faction further.
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