PRI#1: Orc tower spam - is it op? IMPLEMENTED

[TwiztidOne]

The orc towers are the equivalent of the two attack fire totems the dwarfs had when they were released. And they have been removed....

[makazuwr32]

They will get -1 base attack range and -3 max attack range, loose aoe. That already will be enough for them to nerf right now. Max attack range 6 is LOWER than base attack range of bone catapult of orcs and ent demolisher of elves.

And without aoe they will have no chance to hit siege outside of their range.

[Bfkninja]

The short fixes sound like they will help overall balance.
Nerfing the range and removing AOE.
I think the long term plans of adding extra construction time and the techs for AOE are reasonable because they will be for prolonged games.
I am not an expert on all aspects of the game or all races, but I have consistently faced issues when facing an enemy that spams towers.
I am excited and looking forward to the larger changes mentioned.

[Stratego (dev)]

actually if in long term they will cost more i can do it now without problem - why to wait?
but whatever you all think.

[makazuwr32]

No changes in construction cost for sure for now.

Or it will become most useless tower in the game, even more than watch tower of humans.

It must get some changes to stats along with cost changes but that will be possible only during buildings update along with overall overhaul of buildings.

The thing here about "increased cost" will result due to multiple reasons:
1. Greatly increased hp for tower without drastical changes to construction and mend rate. It even might not be changed at all.
2. Orcs in future will become second worst faction in terms of mend rate for workers and laborers, only scalefolks will be even worse in this parameter.

Orc tower also will require tech to get back aoe at very high cost and with some nerfs, tech for melee aoe ability, tech for melee aoe damaging passive aura (multiple tiers) and some more. Only with those in we can increase cost by increasing its health.

[TwiztidOne]

Personally I think cost should go up even if it's only a little. 6 turns to 10 turns or something

[Stratego (dev)]

others what you think? (i know makaw dont like the idea but others?)

[Stratego (dev)]

there earlier agreed changes are ready and published to dev version already.

[Vladneral]

I did not notice the answer about ud towers - question on the top.
So in my opinion bone tower is useful thing actually - bone golems good for early game especially - you can increase their life time by using spirit towers, embassy and necromancers.
I am not expert ud player but so far i get that this is good race for beginers against average players and can be strong enough in professional hands - they have many stuffs that beginer need to discover.
For example - mummy is one of the most important unit in sieges for them.

I personaly dont like any tower spam and spam one unit also - whats the point of strategy then - if you dont want to think and play only with queens on chess desk ?

Is it op - yes, but not so op as people say here. And in almost situations that could be countered. Exceptions are in small maps and in some mirror races games. Like orc have no ettin counter units except have ettin himself.

So after all i think that can be postpone till building update.

P.s. I personaly see some much more OP stuff in this game than we are discussing in this topic but almost have already been discussed with Makazuvr and Savra and fixing most of them now is no sence before building update cause that need be reworked again after that.

P.s.s: i can offer two more ways - how to deal with this problem:
1st) orc towers is not that thing that they extremely need - they can fight well without this towers and fire tech at all. So you could agree with your opponent dont use this op stuff like: fireshelters, snakes, helicopters etc.cause they dont need them for good competion game.
2nd) I can tell the ways how to deal with this OP things for every race.

[DreJaDe]

This might be an unpopular opinion but I think, orc towers shouldn't be one of the strongest but instead be one of the weakest if not the weakest.

(Just remember that I didn't play for a year so my statement is coming from my experience last year and from what I read here)

As the strongest race by magic, by physique, training, buffs, etc. Orcs are already strong on all that... My opinion has changed from balancing the orc towers to, why not make orcs, a race not so tower viable? I mean, Orcs from stereotypes are like that barbarian who isn't scared to fight. Facing everything themselves instead of hiding inside their OP towers.

I think OP towers should be more for those of dwarves and Humans.

The strong doesn't hide, it's the weak who does those cause they are scared. Smt like that.

[Stratego (dev)]

P.s. I personaly see some much more OP stuff in this game than we are discussing in this topic but almost have already been discussed with Makazuvr and Savra and fixing most of them now is no sence before building update cause that need be reworked again after that.

asi said i disagree here, we must change everything that is out of balance, if we can tune a little here and there (like we did on orc towers) we should do it quickly.

we should not let anyone think we do not care about balance issues. that is 1st priority to have balance (naturally if something needs a rework to get best balance , than ok, but we still need to try without rework if that is an easy short fix)

[Jerryqian39]

Ork tower have a rang of nine
which can shut down melle wargon combo.at least the range 9 is a problem.

[makazuwr32]

P.s. I personaly see some much more OP stuff in this game than we are discussing in this topic but almost have already been discussed with Makazuvr and Savra and fixing most of them now is no sence before building update cause that need be reworked again after that.

asi said i disagree here, we must change everything that is out of balance, if we can tune a little here and there (like we did on orc towers) we should do it quickly.

we should not let anyone think we do not care about balance issues. that is 1st priority to have balance (naturally if something needs a rework to get best balance , than ok, but we still need to try without rework if that is an easy short fix)

All this "tuning here and there" is heavily time consuming.
And cuts off time on working for actual updates.

I would prefer to postpone any other balancing issues fixing up to buildings and magic updates.

[makazuwr32]

I did not notice the answer about ud towers - question on the top.
So in my opinion bone tower is useful thing actually - bone golems good for early game especially - you can increase their life time by using spirit towers, embassy and necromancers.
I am not expert ud player but so far i get that this is good race for beginers against average players and can be strong enough in professional hands - they have many stuffs that beginer need to discover.
For example - mummy is one of the most important unit in sieges for them.

I personaly dont like any tower spam and spam one unit also - whats the point of strategy then - if you dont want to think and play only with queens on chess desk ?

Is it op - yes, but not so op as people say here. And in almost situations that could be countered. Exceptions are in small maps and in some mirror races games. Like orc have no ettin counter units except have ettin himself.

So after all i think that can be postpone till building update.

P.s. I personaly see some much more OP stuff in this game than we are discussing in this topic but almost have already been discussed with Makazuvr and Savra and fixing most of them now is no sence before building update cause that need be reworked again after that.

P.s.s: i can offer two more ways - how to deal with this problem:
1st) orc towers is not that thing that they extremely need - they can fight well without this towers and fire tech at all. So you could agree with your opponent dont use this op stuff like: fireshelters, snakes, helicopters etc.cause they dont need them for good competion game.
2nd) I can tell the ways how to deal with this OP things for every race.

Regarding ud towers:
I knew few pro ud players who were able via careful planning and usage of those 2 towers to wipe off the map even pro orc players. REGARDLESS OF MAP SIZE.
Are they op in this case? No.

Stone shelter specifically i somewhat agree since range 9 + aoe + burning + melee type damage + 60 max damage is extremly op. And i always wanted to nerf it by a lot since they got a way to get range 9. But before alex did not agree to do that (in his opinion orcs must have best everything in temrs of attack — best attack wise towers, best attack wise shooters and so on) and after he left and i with savra became main devs i wanted to postpone it up to buildings update. In that update all towers will have their unique functionality and there will not be universal best tower for any race. Tough towers will have high attack values but somewhat low range and low carry capacity (with few exceptions like parapet) while cheap towers will serve as backbone having better heal rate, better carry capacity or better functionality.

And honestly i want to apply this change at once to all races instead of now changing stone shelter, 1-2 months later because that tower is too weak now tower of this race became too op and allows steamrolling through race with nerfed tower and so on.

Better to combine all balancing changes into one update rather than making small balancing changes here and there once in a while and week later again deal with new balancing issues because of problems arised from previous changes.

Yes these small balancing changes once in a while will be loved by some players but it also delays by at 3-30 days development of big updates which will actually bring better and final balance.

[diesel]

I have to agree with stratego's point of view about all this:

most players downloading game have no idea of "behind the scenes" activity - they see chat complaining about balance and simply move on (I've done that many times) - even worse, they see comments that devs don't care or take too long

at least to make a few minimal repairs shows the devs are in an active state of growing it - this can actually *attract* players to stay like myself. Weekly updates/patches are normal for many apps and again shows devs are busy and care

the magic/bldgs update is quickly becoming a joke because its been talked about for over a year - to say there won't be balance fixes until after is discouraging to experienced players

But think about this: the game works, and its awesome! This is the product users see, not the ideas. You guys are brilliant as programmers, artists and mathematicians. There's a responsibility to maintain the game that DOES exist

the PLANNED version is a totally different entity that users have no idea about, and that should be the fun, low-stress hobby work of devs and contributors like me

In summary, if you value players more you must maintain the product that exists, not make them wait an indeterminate time for improvements... if you value your ideas more, then it should be stated this AoF is beta version with no further balance fixes until the app is completed.

IMHO

[diesel]

sorry off topic but that's the elephant in the room right now

[makazuwr32]

That's exactly why both magic and buildings updates are postponed again and again.

Because we always find something urgent to fix or work on.

[diesel]

There must be a way to free up your personal time a little more - i think your ideas and talent should be concentrated then on the larger projects

i suppose there's no one else with the ability to handle some of this in-between work?

i wish i could contribute but my skill-set is limited to writing (my occupation) and maps. i don't know anything about coding

[Savra]

I mean, any form of contribution works, wether it be writing, map making, unit description, art, or attempts at coding (bug fixes mostly), half my time programming mostly is spent on bug fixing so I don't usually get as much in an update as I want to.

But anyway, aside this one thing I pointed out to Stratego earlier about this that orcs structures actually share one common weakness vs flying units, as they don't have much to challenge that, now even more so, as magmatic bullet now is reduced by armour and can be dodged by units with dodge range.

Goblin towers will later be requiring an additional tech along with the cannon fodder to upgrade (might be 2 separate techs actually but we'll see).

About scaledfolks tower spam (I noticed you mentioned that earlier), scaledfolks towers are rather weak, and are supposed to be cheap to build, in fact the goblin tower I based off the scaledfolks fire tower's stats to start with, just without the fire weapon,orcs have enough of this.

Anyway, buildings update, me and Makazuwr actually wanted to get halfway in at least whilst we were working on the dwarves and scaledfolks but it was suggested that we just focus on those 2 races first before we start.

[Savra]

Oh, right, and I'm experimenting on the magmatic bullet also to:
1: test something
2: reduce it's dmg to half of that of the main attack.


Might look a little weird in the finished project, but overall it'll make these tower's even less effective vs flying units.

[Stratego (dev)]

I would prefer to postpone any other balancing issues fixing up to buildings and magic updates.

i must say veto to that.
we MUST make balance with these short updates.
also off topic again.
please open new topic dont answer here.

[Stratego (dev)]

That's exactly why both magic and buildings updates are postponed again and again.

Because we always find something urgent to fix or work on.

this is not true: they are not postponed because of short fixes but
1. because of other rewamps we did already (eg. upscale)
2. the UC races that in for years now!
we must finish those or they will never get out of UC!

and agin off topic. dont answer here please, please open new topic if needed.

[Stratego (dev)]

Ork tower have a rang of nine
which can shut down melle wargon combo.at least the range 9 is a problem.

good news the bassic ranges are only 4 now for both attacks of the towers.

[Stratego (dev)]

if no other idea for quick fixing on this topic than i will close this topic.
so tell me if u think current changes are enough or not for now - available in dev version.

[Stratego (dev)]

The Orc tower nerfs are as follows (already in dev version):
4+2 rng max (magmatic bullet has +1 rng to this)
36+12 attack max
8 sight max
Tech's for magnetic bullet have changed:
Magmatic bullet 1-2, +1 rng
Searing magma 1-2, +6 attack
Volatile magma 1, aoe 1, 50% reduction, max
(Volcano is the same as stone shelter in all these)

Stone pile:
Only, non-giant, non-mechanical, non-dragon units can enter these.

[Stratego (dev)]

so here is the last post in this topic.

[Laxus]

I disagree wholeheartedly with the removal of the x3 construction cost change. That needs to be done. That is SOLE best option to reduce the spam. I think it's important and needs to be done. Maybe take it down a bit if it's contested x2 or x2.5 but I think they need to be harder to construct because with the 2 turn worker spam they go up fast and they NEED to be harder to make. At least to slow the early game spam.

Personally, I disagree. After the nerfs I, as undead(which has the worst seige units), am now able to take down the towers reasonably well. Making their cost even x2 is too much right now.