I just wanted to voice a suggestion :-)
Nothing against giving suggestions.
It's just part of being on a mdoding team that you always try to see the problems.^^ So if I'm sceptical and pessimistic: Don't be hurt by it, it's just part of my job and it's better to look at all the downsides of a concept before it gets integrated, than having done a lot of work for a not working concept.
Also a lot of concepts look really good in the beginning, but have some flaws in special scenarios. (I remember concepts which are changed more than 10 times, because every time someone noticed some major flaws.... some of our intern concepts never managed to get in the mod, as they were good in theory, but there were huge technical problems^^)
I just point them out, as you can perhaps use the knowledge to make the concept better!
In response though, the same thing could be said for 8 players spamming only cavalry, or only archers, all powers etc.
Yeah, but you have to look at the dimensions and the time - if all players fight with all their army, they will die and therefore the game will have time with less stress.^^
Also the Balrog is in addition to that - so basically every game with goblins would automatically be double as stressful as every other game. That is nothing nonrelevant.^^
Just because something is bad for the engine we shouldn't just add more things which are even worse for the engine.^^
The game will always slow down or potentially crash when a lot is happening at once. In game you can set the command limit to almost unlimited, that feature is available for everyone in every game. Imagine 8 players with unlimited units..... these worst case scenarios are vast, but we should not avoid creating the game world the best it can be simply because a minority of players will abuse the system and 'break' the game causing it to run slowly or crash.
Just as a small note: We are mostly doing things for the normal mode. Things like infinite CP are for fun and people know that the mod is not made to run perfect there.
I personally only play against the computer, not other players.
And here we have a problem:
Everything should work in SP and MP and also if we don't just fight realistic battles, but also if we fight unrealistic battles. And for MP balance is very important.
This Balrog is not balanced, it will always be way too weak. Just use one bataillon to distract it (and with knights you can do it without the balrog having a chance to attack you) and your whole army can just walk past it, which makes the Balrog basically completely useless. In MP the balrog won't look cool, most likely it would just be a bit annoying.
Another thing I am currently unsure is how the walking and "sleeping" might work. Sadly the engine gives us some restrictions here.
1.) We can use the system of normal creeps. But here the Balrog would always walk around it.
2.) The system of the spider/wolf-defensive building. Here the units stay still... BUT here we have another problem (sigh
) The units will quite often have animation bugs, like sliding instead of working properly. The spiders are so small that you don't see it and even wolves are small enough that it is not a major problem... But if the Balrog had such a bug... everyone would notice it and it would be way less cooler immediately. Perhaps someone can fix that, but even then the Balrog would still be on the map the whole time, perhaps with less FX, but I'm unsure here.
3.)Something completely new - I have some ideas here, but I'm unsure how they work (adding scripts for the creep player and use the mine system of the dwarves. The main problem would be that the Balrog would somehow "disappear" at the end and not walk down some stairs, which looks less cool immediately, and it will probably have problems, as the Balrog is really slow and walkin out of it will take some time such that many troups will just walk past it, even before he can attack.) But having a problem based on a non-existant system (we don't know if this can be created) is always a bit tricky, as the practicability will not depend on how good the system is, but on luck.^^
Another problem is:
What will stop me from just placing the Balrog directly in front of the enemy base? We would need some minimal distance between the summon and every fortress/castle. And some maps are so small that the Balrog either needs a very little radius (which will cause problems, as he can be killed by archers or everyone can just run past it) or it will not be usable on some maps. That will also need some considerations.^^
Also a lot of people want to actually
use the balrog and not just see it. That's why a lot of people want to have the balrog as a hero. They want to play with it. Having it as a creep will look cool, but never feel as satisfiable as using his fire breath to destroy an army or a fortress.^^ For those guys it would be even worse and I can also understand their points. (even though I am completely against the balrog as normal recruitable hero, but the reasoning behind that would be too much)
Again:
I don't want to destroy your idea or bad-mouth it. I just think that it is fairer if I tell you now about my concerns, while it still can be discussed and new ideas can be be build in. Every concept always has problems in the beginning, the question is always: How can they can be deleted? And therefore someone has to talk about the problems.^^