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Feedback: Horde maps

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Gnomi:
Dear defenders of Edain!

We would like to hear your feedback for the horde maps. Please note that the horde maps are no mission maps. They are meant to be a challenge, hence beating them is not easily. Especially the hard mode is not meant to be easily done by everyone. For most players it is meant to be like tetris – you get points and try to get better each round. Still it should not feel unfair and everyone should have fun.
Please note that we just had a limited amount of testers, so it was tricky to balance it such that everyone will have the best experience.
Hence we would like to hear what you think of the maps and then we can adjust the maps in the next versions, if we think that some parts are unfair!
If you give us feedback, please always give us the following information:
Which map are you talking about?
Which difficulty? Normal or hard?
Did you play alone or as two players?
Which faction(s)?
The best thing would be a replay, such that we can see the game ourselves.

Thanks for the feedback and have fun defending against the hordes!

Mr.Todd:
Hi Gnomi, I tried the Minas Thirit map alone in hard mode, I checked the use of the ring. I played with Gondor and I must say that I was exterminated in a few minutes, I did not have time to have all the improvements before the arrival of the enemies, juste the fire arrows. It was exactly as in the film, very epic.The siege towers are resistance, maybe too much even with a lot of fire arows.

LilJur:
In my opinion, Horde mode needs balancing. In the current state, I think it's off putting, not challenging and fun. I played several ones and all on normal difficulty

The first one I did was Minas Morgul as Gondor and I had a Brutal AI with Mordor as buddy. The wall got destroyed before I could even react. Not hard when you have 6 trebuchets firing upon it. So I brought my entire army (ran out of CP) to the breach. Let's say around 5 battalions of archers, 6 swordmen, all heroes and 2 trebuchets.
My whole army was gone in 1 minute, including heroes (the game mode I had was with stronger heroes). Which made sense, considering every battalion of the horde was rank 5 and fully upgraded. Adding to this that my AI buddy did nothing, all his troops remained around his citadel.
Now I have to admit; this was the only time I fought a horde which was entirely made up out of rank 5 troops. The other horde maps had only a few rank 5 battalions.

I also did Aldburg twice, where I was able to get around 2000 points each time. It was slightly more fun than Minas Morgul and playing offensive with the Rohirrim does pay off.
The main issues with this one is the map design. The first time it took me 3 minutes to find the stables. And I didn't find the archery range until half way through the second time (I used the empty plot for archers). And in the first one, my walls got destroyed on two points... By my own wall mounted catapults.
Being attacked from 3 sides at the same time also made it less fun, especially since the south wall has no defensive plots and archers only last a few second on the wall.

The other horde I did was Edoras with Lothlorien. It was my longest running and I had around 2500 points. I also had the most fun with this one since I didn't feel like I got overwhelmed unlike the other 2.
But I did get lucky here. My walls got over run within seconds through ladders. But they never broke through my gate until near the end. This allowed me to create a bottle neck just beyond the gate and I couldn't get swarmed because they had to come from the walls. Another thing that really helped is Galadriel. She is very powerful.

My suggestion: approach horde mode the same way as Minas Tirith and Helmsdeep were approached in BFME1.
Start with week units, without any upgrade and with every wave, you make them stronger. This would allow the players to actually play horde for longer than 10 minutes and maybe even stretch it to an hour of play. It would also allow the players to actually upgrade their troops and increase their ranks through battles. Maybe even have a short break between waves like BFME1

Halbarad:
"Balancing it" means make it easier? I think it is pretty nice that not everyone is capable to win it on first try. Maybe an easy mode that works as you suggested would be interesting, but for that we would have to split the difficulty up to more than 2 states. For now you must be happy with getting as much points as you can  [ugly]

I was able to win Minas Morgul together with my brother after we failed with defending it for about 20 times, so it is not impossible.


--- Zitat von: LilJur am 14. Feb 2020, 00:44 ---Start with week units, without any upgrade and with every wave, you make them stronger. This would allow the players to actually play horde for longer than 10 minutes and maybe even stretch it to an hour of play. It would also allow the players to actually upgrade their troops and increase their ranks through battles. Maybe even have a short break between waves like BFME1

--- Ende Zitat ---

Isn't that how these Rohan (e. g. Edoras) maps work? You first get only wild men of dunland as enemys, later there are coming Uruk Hai armys. Also Stoneway Alley works this way.

Gnomi:
Hey LilJur
Thanks for the feedback! Balancing maps, where you play vs AI is always a difficult task, as things might be easy for one player, but difficult for another player.
I have one question before I start: What did you expect from the horde maps? If you expected maps like the campaign maps from Bfme I, I can completely understand you, as the horde maps are made way more difficult. The maps are not for people who just want to sit back and chill while playing a bit. Wanting this is totally fine, but there are other maps for people who prefer this. Horde maps are meant to be challenging and force the player to focus and give their best. So if you just want to play without too much stress, I sadly have to tell you that the horde maps have a different target audience - and the maps are balanced for that audience. (for a normal mission map in a campaign, they would obviously be far too difficult... but as said: the maps are not made for a campaign)
As we have written in the article, when we first talked about the maps, those maps are not meant to be easy, but to be a challenge.
Not managing to win in the first few tries, is completely normal. That's why we added the defense points - you can always see if you were better or worse than before and try to get better and better all the time! :) Also you never mentioned if you played on normal or hard difficulty. If you are not playing a lot of Edain in MP or against brutal AIs, I would always suggest playing on normal.

Also using an AI is always a disadvantage for you - it does not work and your starting ressources and starting CP get halfed. (as the AI gets the other half)
The maps are meant to be played alone or with friends, not with an AI.

Also every horde map is something different to each other.
On Minas Morgul Gondor attacks - having them attacking with some weak units wouldn't fit. Minas Morgul is meant to fight against strong armies of really strong units.
On the other hand on Minas Tirith, there are weaker units and they don't attack as full armies, but as a continous attack.
If you look at Aldburg and Edoras, the focus is a bit more on fighting outside with cavalry for an easier defense. Also Aldburg is meant to be the fortress, where you have to fight not only on one front, but on multiple fronts. That way every horde map has some different challenges and they play a bit differently to each other. :)

If you get 2500 on Edoras, it is really good (especially as I think that you did not try to defend your buildings outside of the castle at the beginning?)
2500 means that you are around 1/4 through the whole map, which is rather good for the first try (if you are not a good player)
Also (as mentioned):
On all maps, but Minas Morgul, there are weaker units at the beginning and stronger units at the end - the last attack on Aldburg (as an example) is purely made of Uruk Hai.


--- Zitat ---This would allow the players to actually play horde for longer than 10 minutes and maybe even stretch it to an hour of play.
--- Ende Zitat ---

People have already beaten all Horde maps (which is around 40-50 ingame minutes), mostly even on hard mode. So I wouldn't say that there already is the possibility for players to play longer than 10 minutes. :)

As you mentioned the Bfme I maps:
1.) In the Bfme I maps you started with nearly no money, not with the 10.000-40.000 you start on horde maps. Here you start with more money, but you also have stronger attackers.
2.) On horde maps you get attacked by random attackers. Every time you play it is different - on Minas Morgul you might be attacked by fiefdoms, normal gondor soldiers, elite soldiers... all random.^^ That makes it scriptingwise more difficult to make armies getting stronger over time. (basically there come more attackers over time on horde maps)
3.) Horde: Helm's Deep and Horde: Isengard will have attackers, which have no upgrades at the beginning, but get more and more upgades and level over time.

Finally I have to say that the hard mode will probably not be changed much (just some tweaks here and there), as the maps can be beaten, but you have to try hard for some of them. (on Minas Morgul I saw people winning with more than 22.000 points). Perhaps the normal mode will be made a little bit easier, but they will still be hard, no matter what.

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