Level 2 units balancing in BFW 1.15

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Yomar
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Level 2 units balancing in BFW 1.15

Post by Yomar »

First of all this is not a critic (well at least not in the bad way of the therm, maybe it tries to be a constructive one) Its nice that someone is trying to balance lv 2 units in this new release of the game BFW 1.15), but I think they should kinda follow some basic rules, for example I saw that the the recruit cost of the Trapper was dropped from 27 to 21.
Ok he is not the best lv 2 unit, but also not so bad to cost less than some lv 1 units, plus the fact of an awesome lv 3 unit paired with relatively low xp requirements, don't justify a so harsh recruitment cost, 25 gp would have been more appropriate, he would be relatively cheap but still more expensive than the Horseman or the Griffin Rider,.
In this way its easier for some ppl to recognize if they are about to recruit a lv 1 unit or a lv 2 one.

Update:

Swodsman, 29 Gp ?

More than the Pikeman, Elvish Hero or Longbowman ?
I always thougt, ok Swordsman is a bit crappy but at least he was kinda cheap for va lv 2 unit (25 Gp), and the only "good" unit against som units like Woses that don't get shredded by arrows or melee (namely Cavaly and Mages).
Pikeman dishes out about the same dammage, has same Hp and has better lv up , Elvish Hero has good melee, good forest defense and ranged attacks, but both are cheaper 25Gp and 26gp respectively vs 29Gp of the Swodsman.

It would be nice to have a small note on the reasons for these price changes.
Last edited by Yomar on November 9th, 2020, 6:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Level 2 units balancing in BFW 1.15

Post by Yomar »

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Re: Level 2 units balancing in BFW 1.15

Post by Pentarctagon »

Hejnewar would be the one to contact for any balancing related changes, by the way.
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Re: Level 2 units balancing in BFW 1.15

Post by Hejnewar »

Ok, lets start with Swordsman. Calling him "a bit crappy" is really ugh not good. Compared to Pikeman he has superior resistances, more damage, and superior damage type, that allows him to be good in any matchup except mirror and these are pretty much not-existent.
Vs Elves he of course is better. Vs Orc he is better. Vs UD he is better. Vs dwarf better unless you are facing thunderspam. Vs drake he is pretty much as good as Pikeman because you will often fight against lots of saurians.
Traits help Swordsman more than Pikeman, strong is obviously better on Sword, inteligent allows Sword to level after 4 kills + 2 hits vs 4 kills + 5 hits, this may not seem like big difference but in mp if you are trying to focus on leveling a unit its pretty much difference of one kill.
When it comes to L3 of both units I think in general people think about them mostly as equal, but I personally think that Royal Guard is slightly superior.

Elvish Hero doesnt have any resistances (and slightly superior dodge wont compensate for 20% blade / 20% impact resistances of Sword), and also can be dexterous, this trait provides him less strength than any other of his traits making him on average weaker, secondary attack also doesnt provide as much value as primary does.

About Trapper, his main attack is as strong as some attacks of L1 units, his main selling point is swamp and maybe sometimes forest defense, lets not forget about very important thing, upkeep, L2 units demand 2g per turn from you, this is mitigated by villages to some extent but still matters a lot. For example, if you are designing cheap unit it should provide more value per 1g spent than expensive unit because it will chew thru you income faster. It might not be very noticeable when using mix of units but when using only cheap units it should be very noticeable.

I hope that these reasons are enough.
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Re: Level 2 units balancing in BFW 1.15

Post by Yomar »

Thanks for your explanations, Just a couple of things.
Why superior resistances ? 20+20 equals pikeman's 40% Pierce resistance, and that helps more than just 20%.
Halberdier has 2 types of attacks so he is more flexible and good against units weak to Pierce And blade (che Also deals slightly more dammage and retains first strike), Royal guard has only blade attack and its a good targed against the many ranged units present in the game, same problem goes for the swordsman.

Swordsman better against Dwarves is questionable, Pikeman has firststrike.
Even more so against Elves, considering that they have all good Pierce attacks, he is only better against Woses.

Blade is also one of the most resisted attacks in the game.

Trappers ranged attack is more powerfull than Javlineer's one.
And his XP requirenent is much lower than many other units, much l'esser than the Swordsma's one, AND he can become a very powerful lv 3 unit.

In the end even if your reasoning are valid a 4 GP increase is a lot for Wesnoth standards, Orchish grunts are considered cheap, but they are only 2 Gp less expensive than spearmen , ,Elvish Fighters, Poachers or Skeleton archers.
He costs more than Elvish Captain, is he even more useful than an unit with leadership and better stats than Leutenant ?
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Re: Level 2 units balancing in BFW 1.15

Post by Hejnewar »

20+20 does not equal 40 in this case. High variance resistances are better when attacking because you can choose who you will be attacking and thus make use of it, while defending you can only hope that oponent will attack unit with 40% pierce resistance with pierce attack. Additionally in game outside of loyalist only 4 units are mainly melee and pierce, clasher, goblin, guardsman, saur and clasher will use blade to retaliate.And 20 + 20? There is plenty of melee blade or impact units out there to attack, its also much more likely that enemy will actually use that type of damage against them.

Royal Guard has 6 mp. Just this little ting puts him in my opinion even a bit above Halberdier.
its a good targed against the many ranged units present in the game, same problem goes for the swordsman
What mode are you talking about? Because certainly not about multiplayer. Why? Lets look at what pierce, blade or impact ranged units are played.

Thunderer and Poacher, in case of Thunder you still want blade resistance, and both of them dont deal a lot of damage. 18/16 is not a lot really for 17 / 14g.
Footpad.
Orcish Archer, will use fire against Pike anyway and is not recruited a lot, its counter unit after all.
Asassin.
Elivish team, in this matchup you dont care really about archers, fighters or scouts, you care about wose garden growing on the other side of the map. Why? Because other than that you can just use spearmans and win. Most common out of all these units is still Fighter and he will simply use melee so he is not really ranged.
Skeleton Archer - its pretty good against pierce damage, it is the most common ranged unit out of all mentioned here.

Ranged units in mp are not very common in the first place, people dont spam ranged unit usually and when they do its Skeleton Archer. Eh, this misconception is much more common than it should be.
Swordsman better against Dwarves is questionable, Pikeman has firststrike.
Firststrike is weak special.
Even more so against Elves, considering that they have all good Pierce attacks, he is only better against Woses.
No. First, he is better against fighter too, second yes, he is better against wose, the only unit that you are usually worried about it this matchup.
Blade is also one of the most resisted attacks in the game.
In non mirror matchups for loyalist pierce damage is over twice as much resisted as blade is.
Trappers ranged attack is more powerfull than Javlineer's one.
Javlineer is still melee unit, comparing melee units ranged damage with ranged units ranged damage say something about the situation. :P
And his XP requirenent is much lower than many other units, much l'esser than the Swordsma's one, AND he can become a very powerful lv 3 unit.
Actually, Trappers xp is equal with Pikemans xp, Swordsman has lower xp needed for lvl up. I think that in usual mp game I would still choose RG over Trapper lvl ups.
He costs more than Elvish Captain, is he even more useful than an unit with leadership and better stats than Leutenant ?
If you try to fight with 4 Swordsmans against 6 Fighters and Elvish Ctp. (under standard conditions, neutral tod, flat only etc.), 4 Swords have higher chance of winning than their elvish opponents. :P Amazing, isnt it? 8) (Its not much higher, about 51-52% wr.)
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Re: Level 2 units balancing in BFW 1.15

Post by Yomar »

You forgot Elvish Marksman, he and Even Rangers are very dangerous for a a Swordsman,
and Dwarves have cheap Rogues (Skirmish,Backstab and Ranged, should he noto cost more than a lv 2 Fencer ?), I think Pikeman's first strike is good against them.
Heavy Infantry are Also a bit too expensive, dame forma Leutenant, considering that he can due easly compared to the much chreaper Captain.
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Re: Level 2 units balancing in BFW 1.15

Post by Hejnewar »

Yomar wrote: ↑November 13th, 2020, 12:49 am You forgot Elvish Marksman, he and Even Rangers are very dangerous for a a Swordsman,
And they are very weak against Horseman. I disagree with that Rangers are dangerous to Sword.
and Dwarves have cheap Rogues (Skirmish,Backstab and Ranged, should he noto cost more than a lv 2 Fencer ?), I think Pikeman's first strike is good against them.
Duelist is superior base unit, while Rogue needs to hit backstabs to even be viable, you wont get them 100% of the time, even 75% could be overestimation but it should be very close to that number, also in defence backstab doesnt work and that is very important. Believe me or not but 50% of the time you are the one defending.
Heavy Infantry are Also a bit too expensive, dame forma Leutenant, considering that he can due easly compared to the much chreaper Captain.
HI, thing with them is simple, they are bad in every matchup except vs dwarf, and they are great there, so they cant be strong or they would be spammed in this one matchup all the time.

I actually wanted lower price for Lieu, oh well everyone else agreed with current price and I wouldnt say that its bad, additional movement with leadership can really crate great reasults.
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Re: Level 2 units balancing in BFW 1.15

Post by Krogen »

If you ask me Swordsman is easily among the top 5 best units in the game, considering everything. While Halberdier is a good level 3, on par with Royal Guard, Pikeman just pales in comparison to Sword. It would be decent enough if Sword didn't exist though.
About 80% of the time i level up a Spearman, i pick the Sword, and i see the same from other players. The other 20% goes to the Javelineer, when the situation demands ranged damage. I can't recall choosing Pike in recent years at all. It's a decent choice in a campaign, since you are expected to reach level 3 there, but in a multiplayer game, not so much.
If anything at all should be done, i think it'd be best to make Pikeman a more viable option somehow. Both as a recruit in AoH and as an advancement to Spearman.
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Re: Level 2 units balancing in BFW 1.15

Post by Yomar »

Ok, I see the point now.

But what about the high cost of the Lv2 Shock Trooper ?

Compared to The Elder Wose he is worser in every aspect, but Elder Wose is much cheaper 35 to only 27 (and he is just 1Gp cheaper than the powerful Dwarwish Steelclad), even a Swordsman with impact resistance takes about 40 (maybe something less) damage during Day and dealing about the same amount, but EWose Has far more Hp and also has regeneration ability, still he is cheaper than Both Swordsman and Shock Trooper, Shock Trooper is also the only one that can to go over mountains.
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Re: Level 2 units balancing in BFW 1.15

Post by Yomar »

" Blade is also one of the most resisted attacks in the game."

By Hejnewar Β°In non mirror matchups for loyalist pierce damage is over twice as much resisted as blade is.Β°

I meant that if you count all the units in the game that are resistant to blade they outnumber all other units with different resiatances.
And Dwarves get even more balde resist at higher levels.
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Re: Level 2 units balancing in BFW 1.15

Post by Hejnewar »

But what about the high cost of the Lv2 Shock Trooper ?
As I said, he is weak, but there is a problem with him, dwarf needs extraordinary amount of force in order to push thru him, thats all there is to it.
I meant that if you count all the units in the game that are resistant to blade they outnumber all other units with different resiatances.
And Dwarves get even more balde resist at higher levels.
Only one Dwarf gets higher blade res than pierce res with levelups. Actually just havie a resistance vs damage type doesnt tell the full story and for loyalists that is particularly important because of their great reliance on pierce damage type, blade is just very good for them to supplement their weaknesses.
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Re: Level 2 units balancing in BFW 1.15

Post by Yomar »

Well juding from online games that I saw he is susceptible to impact, cheap footpads do good free ranged dammage to him and are hard to hit with only 2 attacks.

And whats your opinion of Lv 2 Wose ? Is he not too cheap ?
He can even defeat the more costly Red Mage and even the Swordsmam.
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Re: Level 2 units balancing in BFW 1.15

Post by Hejnewar »

Its not about killing him, its about killing him in time, because if you dont your army is going to die on flat without cover or you will have to retreat early
not achieving anything, also im not talikng about heavy infrantryman, almost noone (good) uses him anyway.

He can, but chances that swordsman dies to elder wose are not great, red mage is more likely to die to elder wose than sword, but you should never be in situation where you cant cover you red mage with other units. Mages are expensive because they are are good vs high dodge targets, woses are actually the opposite of high dodge targets its their natural defense against them - investing in hp instead of dodge. If we take away magical from red mage, he wont be better than longbowman vs generic unit.
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