Edain 4.6: General feedback

[Elendils Cousin 3. Grades]

As always, we're eager to hear what you think of the version, which parts you like especially and which parts could use improvement!

[Le Sournois]

THE MISTY MOUNTAIN FACTION
I really like the Misty Mountains Spellbook, especially with the Drums system and above all the power "Beast of the Ered Mithrin" which offers several really interesting choices to the player : the position of the lair, aggressive or defensive, and the first units to be recruited : immediate power with cold drakes or long-term investment with fire drake which can become a unit almost as good as Smaug himself.

Once again, everything is coherent, the all system is very exciting, very accurate also. The 3 subfactions complete each other nicely. Goblin-Town is beautiful with all its scaffoldings. 

The unique character of each faction is fully emphasized in the Misty Mountains which is really different even to Mordor which draw everything to Sauron, while the Misty Mountains are chaotic and expansionist.

One thing which could be better (I may be wrong) is a nerf to the faction considerable expansion in a game where the other factions can't do that.
After 3 pioneer construction, Goblin-Town and Gundabad cost still 4000. Maybe they could worth even more in an exponential way as money is not hard to get with the Misty Mountains ?


AI DIFFICULTY
What could be improved in general in my opinion are the difficulties of the AI. It seems that in Edain, Brutal AI are really difficult in early gae because of the rush of heroes  along with sometimes some upgraded units  but after that, it is rare to see a second rush of heroes and the ennemy units usually don't get a lot of upgrades.

It is as if the AI get a big boost in the beginning but afterwards would weaken. It would be could to see a Brutal AI which could do hero rushes more often.

The hard difficulty could therefore be interesting to get more hero rush early, but a softer game afterwards.


THE WAR OF THE RING
Finally, the last point I want to discuss is the War of the Ring. The work that is been done is great but there are some general problems in my opinion :
Real time battle should not brake the balance of the living world confrontation. The AI don't seem to withdraw batlle a lot, and even then, there is a possibility to create a lot of upgraded armies which in case of a victory will stay freely in the hand of the player.

It would be nice to impose afterwards a price to units that had been created during a real time battle in the same way it has been done in the original ROTWK War of the Ring, but also why not a small price to the upgrades that has been researched during the battle.

Also, last point, but I noticed the auto-resolution react strangely sometimes. In a game, Gothmog was attacking Minas Tirith alone without any army, and I had not army to defend Minas Tirith, but anyway it is one of the best fortress in Middle-Earth and Gothmog won the auto-resolve combat.

Sorry for the post that is too long, but there was so much additions with Edain 4.6 !

[Elendils Cousin 3. Grades]

We heard several other voices also asking for an additional increase in cost for the tunnels in the lategame, we'll most likely implement that.

General strength of the AI is also on our radar as it's been mentioned a few times, but that is more time consuming so it will take longer.

[alexbarsspe]

Greetings to the Edain team. It's a great job. There are questions that I would like to discuss.

GONDOR

The heroes, except Gandalf, have no descriptions for the purpose of the heroes.
BOROMIR
Boromir runs up to the 6th level with a shield on his back and cannot use it, which I think is not right.
My suggestion
Will increase the price from 2000 to 2200
abilities
1. Move the Gondor Horn to level 5 and reduce the reload time
2. Brave Resistance set to level 2 duration of 30 seconds. Upon reaching level 6, the duration increases to 40 seconds.
3. The heir of Gondor.  move to level 6

ISENGARD
Mistake : Grimma wormtong
Level 10. To influence depression – does not regularly have any effect on enemy heroes.

Saruman is white
1. Fireball increase damage to heroes
2. Blast the wizard to increase damage.Now the damage is lower than that of Gandalf the grey.
I understand that Saruman is locked in a tower and does not have frequent battles and trips, he may have less physical damage, but he must have strong magic damage.

3. Powerful speech – to increase the experience he gives the troops.

IRON HILLS
Description error: Drar. There is no complete description of the abilities
Error : Murin
Iron Hills Officers – When Drar and Murin are called to the battlefield there is no effect for Murin.

Offer: Since Murin is a mass extermination, increase his armor. When there is a Drar on the battlefield, Murin can throw back troops.

Ered mitrin
I propose a new hero, Ered Mitrin.
He may not be from the nobility, for example, he may be a veteran who has seen many battles and sieges, a dragon hunter. But I think it would be appropriate to give him specialization as the support of buildings and structures, to tie the hero to the tower of Ered, Mitrin. I don't think there should be a lot of armor on it, it should be mobile, armor is not a hindrance to dragons.
Abilities: 1 . Level.
 Passive.When a certain level is reached, the tower receives improvements. The hero also receives additional damage to monsters.
3. Level. Throwing a spear. Slows down monsters.
7. Uses fire and oil to ignite.
10. Temporarily increases the viewing radius of the tower. For a further salvo from the catapult. Increases the debuff radius to monsters. And the armor of the building.

Blue Mountains
Description error: Dvalin Hero support
Balin is a mass extermination, it is necessary to swap places.
Suggestion:
Torin: At level 10, Torin becomes the King of the Lonely Mountain. I suggest giving a passive effect on damage + 25%.
Dwalin,: at level 10, Hammer of the earth – add damage. Dvalin is more expensive than milk, but it has less benefit at level 10
A powerful level 3 punch, it's hard to hit an opponent.

MISTY MOUNTAINS
Mistakes:
Bolg
Wrath of the Misty Mountains - At level 10 , Bolg is part of the Elite Troops , while the ability does not work . Bolg cannot drop enemy units. Also, this ability does not affect the flag bearers in any way.
Defiler
A terrible example is level 10. Does not damage the enemy hero.

LORIEN
Mistake: Legolas.
When using melee, it always works incorrectly, the attack distance is incorrect.

IMLADRIS
Error in the description: Halbarad indicated hero support, and he is unit support
Error: Gildor – Sniper Scope ability does not work

[Elendils Cousin 3. Grades]

Hey Alex, sorry for the late response. I moved it to the general feedback thread - if you want to talk about your suggestions in more detail, we might move to the balance threads for each faction, but it's fine for now.

First off, glad you like the new patch! I'll try to respond to your suggestions one by one.

Boromir:
Since he doesn't start with an active ability, it is important to us that his horn (which is definitely his most iconic ability) gets unlocked first. He already is very tanky, so his horn adds another dimension to him that makes him much more valuable and justifies his buildcost.

Saruman:
Power of Speech already is an incredibly powerful ability that had to be nerfed in the past, I disagree that it needs a buff. Same goes for his other abilities - yes, his Wizard Blast deals a little less damage than Gandalf's, but Isengard is also a more powerful faction in the lategame due to the amazing Uruk-Hai and an incredible economy. With Saruman of Many Colours, he still oneshots most enemies.

Murin & Drar:
Which ability doesn't have a complete description? Murin is supposed to knock back enemies when Drar is on the field.

Ered Mithrin Hero:
Unfortunately, the Dwarves already have reached the limit of heroes possible for the faction. We cannot add another one.

Bolg, the Defiler and Gildor all were part of bugfixes in 4.6.1 and their abilities should work as intended now.

[Le Sournois]

Just another remarks after having tested 4.6.1 :

-Thanks a lot for the Lothlorien central spell rework, it's even more interesting to play with them now.

-War of the Rings suffers of a great lack of challenge. In about 20 turns, a Brutal AI has not built any forges against me in the living world.

He makes only barracks. Without any forge, there is no way his units can match mines after several turns.
And forges are not more expensive than barracks, it's strange it doesn't build that.

If the system is too complex for the AI to use forges, would it be possible to give Hard and Brutal AI the ability to upgrade his units via the barracks instead of the forge, but 1 per turn instead of 3 ?

-About the general balance of the factions, maybe for the Misty Mountains, Bolg's elite are too powerful, heroic units that are free and not so hard to get ? Wow !
Black Easterlings are harder, you need to get Dol Guldur, then Khamul, then get the level to use his ability...

- Goblin Town and Gundabad citadel produce the same amount of money than any camp citadel (+40)  instead of the amount produced by outpost citadel (+10). Considering they don't need to upgrade Forged Tools, that is an amazing boost !

[Elendils Cousin 3. Grades]

Bolg is very powerful indeed, he may receive additional nerfs in the future.

I'm not sure how much can be done to improve the Livingworld AI, but we can take a look at it.

[Le Sournois]

Hello,

I know Smaug and the dragons has been made stronger in the last patch, but is it clearly not too much ?

Smaug looks like unkillable even when he comes right above my camp. Archers seem to do very little damage against him.

I guess it's the same for the other dragon.

[Elendils Cousin 3. Grades]

No, smaller dragons are less resistant than Smaug, although it always depends on the situation. As for Smaug himself, he will be nerfed again slightly in the next patch.