[Feedback] Battle System Re-Balancing

[Iolanthe]

This is something of an aside but reading through the thread a little crossover seems appropriate here, so from the Test Forum:

Right now we don't have any ETA of when we will implement the new combat system, we might even decide not to do it and this is the main reason we have invited everyone to test it in order to provide us with feedback.

Right now this is a very early version of the new system, we know for a fact that we still need to do a lot of changes, but we wanted you all to join us and keep providing us with feedback along the way we are doing all these changes because we know that the combat system is a very important part of the game.

Please do test the new combat system in adventures and if it's possible tell us from your point of view with numbers where did we go wrong and how it can be better.

Original

There are very good reasons many people have developed a fairly low opinion of the value of player feedback, but I'd not go revising entire live game economies just yet. In this case The Powers do appear to be, through the eyes and typing fingers of the local Test_BB, actively seeking info and informed opinions. Here's hoping it plays out that way, there is a lot of work to be done on the systems - combat, economy, loot rebalancing... as it stands. (And I'd not be kaurkal for worlds if Those Above don't run a number of player-influenced revised versions before making any final decisions.) /end public expression of cautious optimism

Totally off-topic:

Ps. nice screencaps of those Excel spreadsheets

Ha! People keep talking about this! There is BBcode for tables (the results are tidier though posting it is a little involved,) but it's not enabled on the forums. Whether that's a version issue or something else, no idea but at the mo' screenies (rough and tentative or more polished) really are the way to go.

[Nogbad]

Please, please, please. Stop this insanity before you break our game beyond repair.
Why you are wasting time on utter tripe like this is beyond me, especially when your previous snafus still haven't been fixed.
Please stop dreaming up disasters like this, and before you even consider anything else 'new', I want to first see with my own eyes that the following adventures can once more be landed upon and played as they were designed:
The First Match, Match2, Match 3, Match 4, Match 5 and The Final.
Save The Christmas Feat and The Stolen Sleigh.
Those 8 won't even let you land.
All of the co-op adventures, Landing Zones may or not appear , even if you've managed to land generals on the map, no guarantee that they'll be able to move once there, and of course the farcical situation where 2 players land in the same sector, breaking the adventure completely.
Stealing From The Rich and Gunpowder, Towers no longer act normally, no doubt an unintended side-effect of the changes made creating this unholy mess.

Aside from these 20 odd broken adventures, the Guild Quests are still busted and obsessed with the same 2, and no opt-out in sight. The collectables remain a nightmare, and what kind of fix is it to remove all the decorations' descriptions just to stop these things shutting down workyards? Just one bug replacing another.
And, for the love of all that is holy, how hard is it to make a green light come on when friends are online?

[Nihilista]

Since the feedback is so incredible bad I'm sure we can expect that BB will implement it since BB NEVER EVER listen to the community.

[Sharpielein]

Until we see what the rebalancing of the enemy troops looks like, there's really no way to know if the adventures will become harder or easier, but I think the whole way we're framing this debate is wrong. As best I can tell, this is not really a change to the combat system but a change to the economy system.

Enemy troops have already been re-balanced. For example: Foxes now deal roughly 3x as much damage as before (plus it's splashy) and Wolf Packleaders' damage has been increased to an amount that they can chew through 7 recruits at a time (or: 2 packleaders for 3 elites).

That said, someone at Bluebyte thinks it's "balanced" to lose as many elites on one single measly camp as you can produce in a WEEK - assuming you have 2 fully buffed lv5 Damascene Swordsmiths on your island.

I'm not gonna spend 6 months producing resources for a single Fairytale - even if I could!

Oh, and with 42 Coal being required for 1 Damascene Sword, I'm not gonna plaster my entire island with choking plants just so I can have enough coal to keep my swordsmiths running for a full day once a week ...

Things aren't balanced, not at all. And it's not only "enemy units". Nothing is.

Fixing this situation might go into the direction of reducing enemy unit damage by as much as 80% or boosting friendly unit health by something like 500%, but I guess we'd end up somewhere along the lines of "mudflation" that in the end, nothing will have changed except the numbers and labels.

And making adventures close to impossible and fully unrewarding isn't really what's going to fill their coffers in the long term.
They'll merely kill the game, nothing achieved.

[toastkid]

I will welcome the changes, apart from giving all units splash damage, and the revised troop costs. Combat would in my opinion be very linear and boring if different strategies cannot be used depending on whether a given enemy has splash damage or not, as is the case at the minute.

I think a much better solution for rebalancing costs to build units would be to effectively upgrade basic units to more advanced specialists. IE you train either a recruit or bowman first, and then to make more advanced units it would cost a lower level unit and a smaller amount of advanced weapons. An example of how this could work is below. Times are based on a level 1 barracks, and are the same or similar to existing times (eg current soldier time is 12:00, new time would be 3:00 + 4:00 + 5:00 so 12:00 in total still).

Obviously the 25 unit limit would have to be changed in the barracks; I have no idea whether BB have looked at this and found a barrier from a technical viewpoint, or whether they just don't care about reducing server traffic and the risk of players developing carpal tunnel syndrome!



The smaller amount of advanced weapons needed would mean that high level production chains could be used as more than decorations (clearly one of BBs goals in rebalancing) without the need for players to have to make such drastic changes to current weapons chains. It would make more sense to me to increase stable production time and/or input needed than keep the number of horses required so high.

[topgearfan]

wait what? endless copper mine useless?! i was just gonna buy one, hope i can still cancel the order..

[Sharpielein]

One of the problems in the system which is currently "live" is that while enemy units effectively "advance" (i.e. in tougher adventures, there's enemies dealing 4x or even 6x as much first strike damage as a cavalry - or having nearly 2x as much HP as an Elite), player units remain "static".

For example, an Elite Soldier is barely as tough as 3 Recruits and a Cannoneer is only very situationally more useful than a Longbowman.

The new combat system doesn't really ameliorate that, it only magnifies troop losses to a point where recruits become impossible to use.

However, even in the "new" system, there's no way to meaningfully deal larger amounts of first strike damage (as a player - mind you: monsters can deal enough FS damage to take out entire armies on the Major!) and now it's pretty much impossible to use Ranged units when the opponent has "heavy hitting" first strikers (in the past, you could sacrifice a few bowmen to protect the Crossbows: now you can't!)

At the same time, even "weenie" enemy units, such as Caltrops, have received boosts as much as 400% to health and 100% to damage.

Also, in the new system, you are oftentimes forced to sacrifice huge amounts of high level, slowly building units such as Elites where formerly, a few Recruits would absorb the damage - because it's getting splashed. Losses are magnified with no benefit added.

Another thing I noted that Militia can no longer protect Cannons from "Attacks Weakest Target", making these significantly more vulnerable without really improving their utility. Cannons effectively received a massive downgrade, and especially combined with the current state of enemy splash damage, they can only be used in very, very limited circumstances - effectively nerfing the highest level (and most difficult to obtain) player unit.

Elites, yes, they have received +33% health as compared to the current state, but that's no compensation because now, they're often at the first line of the front and in the past, having 120 hitpoints allowed them to absorb as much as 238 damage per unit (if there had been an enemy dealing 119 damage per strike).
But more realistically, 1 Elite could easily absorb 2 hits of 100 damage in death, so 200 units dealing 100 damage a piece would only kill 100 Elites per turn.
These same units would now kill 133 Elites despite the hitpoints boost - so effectively, the utility of Elites has been REDUCED(!) by 33% rather than increased by 33% ... Maths is tough.


All I can say: The guys who made the "new unit balancing" don't just know how Thesettlersonline is being played, they also didn't know basic Maths.

[The_Sarmatian]

I am more impressed by the news someone earlier dropped here that to accomplish an advanced adventure you will need to lose 100+ elite soldiers worth in production chain like 40.000 titanium ore, while getting in loot no dama-swords and just 200 titanium ore as an icing on the cake. PERFECT! Thanks BB. Good laugh never hurts.

Can we have pls some on-water port with landings for our generals too? Something more fancy to build. More island to build. Can we build building in adventures now pls too? Settlers was always a construction game first. I am so sad settlers online are so limited in a way of construction. I guess it will be addressed when skills for economy will arrive. However CAN WE PLEASE BUILD ON ADVENTURE ISLANDS? pls pls pls pls with crocodile tears on top. :')

[Saraptheold]

After testing it on the test server I can say that I most definitely DON'T like it at all. The bandit camps on the home island has become a nightmare to defeat. I don't see how on earth it would be possible for new players to finish them. Suicide waves with low level troops has become virtually useless. If they let these changes go live the game is simply dead. New players can't make any progress and old players can hardly do adventures anymore. This is not just my opinion. It's just simple fact. What on earth are the devs thinking of? Have there been a lot of complaints from us, the customers, on the existing battle system since they found it necessary to ignore every change that we actually want in this game and go ahead and develop this?

Good thing I've found other more interesting online games, because if this goes live I will have left this game as soon as it is announced.

Oh and those other games are actually free by the way.

[Omega10]

Another thing I noted that Militia can no longer protect Cannons from "Attacks Weakest Target", making these significantly more vulnerable without really improving their utility.

This is untrue from the testing I have done, Cannons and Crossbowmen are not classed as weak units so therefore no longer get attacked by units with attacks weakest target skill, therefore they can be used with Soldiers and Elites without being hit.

Just thought I would point this out, not that I am agreeing with the changes that have been made to the combat system.