Balance

[Mills]

So, there's this map that people around here frequently play, I think it's called EotA or something like that. Anyways, alot of people I talk to seem to say it's imbalanced or certain aspects of the game are broken. Likewise, almost just as many people say the exact opposite. So, I guess what I'm trying to get here is that some people have a certain viewpoint about game balance which sometimes disagrees with someone else.

Alright then, assuming you took the time to read that you should be able to figure out what point I'm trying to get across. So, how about we take this time and opportunity to actually explain your vision of the balanced game of EotA, and critisize other peoples. If someone decides to post something absurd and/or hilarious, there is no need to point it out. Feel free to discuss it and say what you deem wrong, but keep the negativity directed towards the other person to yourself.

Also, I don't want you to think of this as some place to say X hero needs a Y nerf/buff in Z skill. Talk about where you think the overall ability of things should be, whether it is dealing with units, heroes, obelisks, map design, or something else. I highly encourage discussing multiple aspects in your post rather than focusing on one idea, it will help others get a broader sense of what you are thinking.

[Cokemonkey11]

the units that come from tower cores are the only problem. To push forward the Rock < Paper < Scissors method you should restrict certain types to only be able to attack other types, or something of the sort (or deal minimum damage)

For example currently piercing damage does little to counter someone massing air.

[Elreth]

Okay to start, general creep movements. Now the top and bottom lanes lack a third, area tower. This makes them quite vulnerable to large pushes since after about 6 units, more and more units can attack with impunity. This is presumably because they lack an obelisk tower, so if the base dies its probably not that big of a deal unless they build the outpost themselves or start command towering. It makes for interesting balance, and is notable since now that spawning is somewhat coordinated between bases, you can expect larger pushes.

Does this mean that mercs on top and bottom races are overpowered? Possibly, but at the same time they typically have lower levels of mercs available. However, this means little because the most effective use of money is a timed double tier one merc spawn and with the right timing and luck can easily destroy an outpost before level five. This isn't to say that the mercs are unbalanced between themselves, since certainly later on tier three especially is infinitely more effective against lanes with heroes than the others and is therefore worth the extra cost.

It is hard to say more on this since it is so radically altered by the spawn timing changes but it worth mentioning that the amount of exp gathered is greatly influenced by lane choice. This means that a hero who is willing to move to the correct lane (gold/time) might level more quickly than one who simply sits in his lane. To do this correctly though, you really have to be worried about little else, so you have to be rather familiar with the game. I guess you could say that it isn't a balance issue, but since there is an item that already exchanges gold for exp (tome of power) that is vastly inferior in terms of efficiency.. well it is something to think about, although a solution is not evident (especially not in the tome since most people, even slightly experienced players either are unaware of it or rarely think about it).

Now about spawn towers, first air since it ties in a bit. One of the great advantages of air is that it doesn't clog up your lane and more importantly, it is immune to the clogging of actual units. I will admit that in tests without any hero or merc interference they are somewhat significantly countered by archers, but this is an impossibly inaccurate test. One of the worst parts being that air often targets heroes, say the opposing hero destroys or otherwise seriously cripples the ground units that might have conceivably taken their attacks, or you are slightly ahead of your ranged units for some spell alignment... you are going to get a face full of dragon breath or what have you. And with seven dragons that really hurts just about anyone. Then they spread out more, plus are generally huge, making it harder to hit them all with area of effect spells. They might as well have magic resistance. It is even worse if they aren't countered since they will quickly eliminate the casting spawns which are needed for the larger groupings of enemies from the timed spawns. There is more but, moving on.

Siege is pretty well balanced, powerful against buildings and somewhat effective against groups, plus it has long enough range to rarely affect troop movements. Throwing in a siege to any lane is a good way to sneak in some damage since often times people will ignore lanes without heroes. Heavy melee has a serious clogging problem that is horribly exasperated by the polymorph counter which people get stuck on and really needs to be changed to anything just please. It creates a good oppertunity for dispell heroes though who might otherwise rarely get to use a skill. Plus the high hit points helps against area of effect magic, although this is somewhat mitigated since the clustering they create is probably going to be targetted anyway. On the issue of balance it is not really fair that the elves and the undead get summoning spawn tower units (druids, necromancers) while the creeps get invis walking units..? It is especially relevant playing against the undead who are weak to vast numbers of enemies, which doesnt help the "elves versus undead is instant win" sentiment. The point being using druids against them is a valid tactic whereas as creeps you are basically just going to use air.

This is getting long so, a couple quick points. Undead heroes generally have a mix of anti hero and anti creep abilities.. moves that work on either but aren't super effective against either. This kind of generates a hit or miss effect with them, if they start off doing pretty well and make some good investments they can turn their skills into "greatly effective against both" which will give them a landslide victory. However if they are some hero killers on the other team, basically.. at all. Then they are probably going to get beaten by the hero killers and out pushed by the other heroes. Probably what gets them pummeled by the elves is that they have skills similar to the undead but are more like "greatly effective against creeps and somewhat less effective against heroes", meaning that undead only have a slight advanatage against them in hero combat (and god help them against a good infi) and unless they press that advantage sucessfully and often they are going down.

Okay that was one point but im stopping now anyway.

[DarkNemesis]

I would beg to differ that the Undead generally are weaker against the Elves when it comes to support. Yes the Undead tend to cross the line alot more, as you stated Elreth, but overall, they are pretty even. Now what they do lack, unlike the Elves, is an array of offensive casters. Even the new guy, Putrid Eidolon, isn't in this league, yet. Again, this is were Elreth is right, the Undead tend to fit every category, rather than just one specified niche. In some cases, this is unstoppable, yet in most, hardly grand. The only instance where fitting every category works, and incredibly well, goes to the Creep hero: the Shaman. The only thing this guy can't do as well as a specified class heroes is kill troops, although with a high level, int-based nova totem and some extra points into dmg and multi-shot talent, I think he can hold his own. Yes, he can even Tank.

Elreth, a skillful Oracle player could more than scare off even a goof Inf. Clairvoyance, Befuddle+Zen Archery. That strategy would make her useless. And Rue, Ascendant, and Nephillium are just ridiculous against her.

[Leek]

In terms of Heroes:

AoE tends to be extremely useful, even on Stormwail. The ability to stop pushes is very strong. PK'ing in general seems to be less useful unless it happens a lot.

For Races, Undead seem to be somewhat underpowered compared to other races. They don't seem to have that many great pushers. Undead heroes are also as a rule lower HP heroes and are more succeptable to PK'ing. Rue and Eidolon are exceptions.

Mid-game it seems that being a low HP hero is a rather large disadvantage due to how high nukes and AoE become. In reverse tank heroes seem rather strong, being able to absorb many many times more punishment then lower HP heroes, while generally having equal utility, damage and stuff.

Just to throw it out, lots of people say goblin spawns are unbalanced. I know they have no real "hard" counters so I think that is part of the problem.

[DarnYak]

I'm staying out of this thread for the most part because I influence threads like these too much.

However, i will throw in that hero killing doesn't have nearly the importance it should have. I would assume this is because the penalty for dying is relatively light (not a bad thing, enough people leave after one death as it is), but also because the time that hero is out of combat doesn't effect the game much (it might stop a push, although frequently it won't even do that). Deathblows were added to increase this effect, although they've clearly been negligable so far as I've seen.

To be fair, hero killing, when it works, is also pretty damn obnoxious. They farm insane amounts of gold/crystal, the opposing team generally can't do much, even in numbers. And once they get rolling they tend to get enough items and upgrades that they're nearly unstoppable.

I'm wondering if perhaps a different archtype would be appropriate. Rather then hero killers, a focus instead on hero harrassers. They could obviously kill heroes, but their more keen on delaying/distracting them and getting in and out of battle fast. Of course, i'm not entirely sure how this stacks up against AoE..which, as part of the problem, tends to do far too much damage against heroes that it effectively does the same job, but usually at range.

DarnYak

[Mills]

So, just to clear things up.

I don't want you to think of this as some place to say X hero needs a Y nerf/buff in Z skill

I couldn't care less about individual heroes, units, spells, or items. What I'm looking for hero is the overall feel of a certain aspect. Are heroes to strong compared to creeps? Are items playing to much of an important part in the game? How fast do you think hero killers should kill? What do you think of the currect obelisk system?

I don't want to know which specific thing you think might need tweaking. I don't even care how you think things could be fixed, nor do I want to hear about it. Please make sure the following posts don't focus on specific ideas, but rather keep it to a more broad approach.

[Tehw00tz]

I had some big wordy post with a bunch of useless crap inbetween my points so I shortened it

Hero killers kill heroes too slow, Infil, Harpy, and Swashy are the only ones close to having it right, Harpy and Infil are also versatile enough to be able to stop pushes and focus on PK'ing, Swashy to a lesser degree since Dash and Mockery don't work too well on end stuff, but it definitely does stop a push for a little. Battles where a full health/mana PKer encounters an red RK in a neutral area of the map should end in 10 seconds, unless the RK can outplay the PKer and get away safely.

To a point I would use Divine Wizard ahead of the other hero killing units, Vengeance paired with all the AoE moves he has makes him competent at everything. RK is also very good at a lot of things.

[DarnYak]

Hero killers kill heroes too slow

This is where i have to wonder, is this accurate? Hero killers, when they work (even if only against certain heroes), seems a bit absurd, and is not fun for the receiving end.

And yes, i said i'd stay out of this thread and i post again. Go me.

DarnYak

[DarkNemesis]

Hero killers kill heroes too slow

This is where i have to wonder, is this accurate? Hero killers, when they work (even if only against certain heroes), seems a bit absurd, and is not fun for the receiving end.

And yes, i said i'd stay out of this thread and i post again. Go me.

DarnYak

No DarnYak, I'm glad you brought this up. As posts like this could be some of the reason why we have imbalance issues.

It is absurd, how fast they kill heroes. Too fast, not fast enough. Lol.

And no, I wouldn't consider the Wizard good at a lot of things. He kills troops, and some heroes (except Tanks). That doesn't cover troop support and Tanking. And actually, Wizard isn't what I would call a true hero killer, though he can do it easy enough.

[Dekar]

A part of the hero killer problem may be, that AoE heroes deal such a high damage ( DW one shotting waves = 600-800+ dmg ) and that damage hits heroes too. So they basically fill both roles. In addition the average hero has either a skill against heroes ( nukes, shared pain ), disable ( AM fog, stuns, slows, ... ) or a heal to give the hero killers enough problems dealing with them.

As every hero should be skillable for different purposes, the lines of real classes are blurred and it gives most heroes ways to deal with hero killers. There is no hero that must be played as pure spawn killer for example.

[Sparda963]

A couple of us played a bunch of AP Capture mode last night on a few of the maps. Some of the creeps seemed to have a massive spell imunity, ie holy strike at lvl 5 was doing like 25 dmg to them. It made it incredibly anoying to the point where only our spawns or a pk hero doing just regular swing dmg could kill them. Maybe something like this needs to be done for AOE against heros? Put like a 50% reduction against heros in it, that would keep you from being super effective at both killing waves and weakening heros. But it would still make the aoe do some dmg so its not completly useless against heros.

[DarnYak]

Its currently 75% damage to heroes (unless physical damage, i think).

DarnYak

[Dekar]

I think Lunge went up to ~800 damage without causing any additional effect.

If we compare this nuke on propably the most typical hero killer in EotA to the too often brought up in comparisons Holy Strike with its 800*0.75 = 600 damage with AoE effect, we see that there is only a slight compensation for giving up versatility and not to forget farming capabilities. So the DW can get better gear easier if we take a certain skill level of the players for granted. Also he has a steady income and can more easily catch up, as units dont get stronger. Once a hero killer is behind in exp and gold its getting increasingly harder to catch up.

And that brings us to the next point. Getting behind in levels is quite easy as hero killer, because you should switch lanes often to catch low hp enemys from behind or for the general suprise. Also you cant stop large pushes that easily to farm exp.
Increased exp from hero kills could be added in combination with reduced damage from AoE skills. Exp increase alone would benefit not only the hero killers atm.

[DarkNemesis]

I think Lunge went up to ~800 damage without causing any additional effect.

If we compare this nuke on propably the most typical hero killer in EotA to the too often brought up in comparisons Holy Strike with its 800*0.75 = 600 damage with AoE effect, we see that there is only a slight compensation for giving up versatility and not to forget farming capabilities. So the DW can get better gear easier if we take a certain skill level of the players for granted. Also he has a steady income and can more easily catch up, as units dont get stronger. Once a hero killer is behind in exp and gold its getting increasingly harder to catch up.

And that brings us to the next point. Getting behind in levels is quite easy as hero killer, because you should switch lanes often to catch low hp enemys from behind or for the general suprise. Also you cant stop large pushes that easily to farm exp.
Increased exp from hero kills could be added in combination with reduced damage from AoE skills. Exp increase alone would benefit not only the hero killers atm.

I completely agree here. Inf is almost impossible to keep par with troop killers if she dies too much or switches lanes too often, as Dekar stated.

[Sparda963]

To add to Dek's post, its even worse if you take the talents that increase the dmg in the center of your holy strike. I think it goes up to at least 15%, so if you nail a hero dead on which isnt hard to do, your doing even closer dmg to the single target nuke.

[DarkNemesis]

To add to Dek's post, its even worse if you take the talents that increase the dmg in the center of your holy strike. I think it goes up to at least 15%, so if you nail a hero dead on which isnt hard to do, your doing even closer dmg to the single target nuke.

Holy Strike may hit hard, but it has shit AoE. And you can miss.

Vengeance is what makes the Wizard so good. Alot of heroes have AoE nukes, that imo, are better overall.

[Perhaps]

Holy strike has good enough radius to hit all the ranged units in a cast or almost enough to hit all the melee (range is where the money is at though). Not only that, Holy Strike cools down rather fast. As far as the missing part, I'll sound like an interface elitist fuck for a bit, but you should make sure you're in casting range before you make the casting order so it'll cast on the moment you order it, rather than order to cast, move to range, things move, cast. I also wouldn't consider every other AoE overall better...

Mana Drain (Divine Wizard): Channeling
Long Bow Shot (Tactician): Long cooldown, and hits few targets...
Mines (Infiltrator): Initial setup time, activation time, hurts allies (can be good for counter-farming though, double edged sword), and can be destoyed before use.
Metoer (Arcane Archer): Scattered Randomly, hurts allies(also can be good for counter-farming, double edged sword) and Channeling.
Syphon Glyph (Rune Knight): Takes a while, stops if source is no longer in range, and can be destroyed for lesser effect.
Hazard Slash (Rune Knight): Close Range, hard to work in area hit, and long cooldown.
Grand Rune (Rune Knight): Long cast time and interruptible.
Flame Spin ultimate (Blazing Priest): Channeling
Tempest (Aeromancess): Chanenling
Incinerate (Soul Binder): Requires close range, bad at level 1 and 2, pushes shit out of it(less of a problem is you go behind their range and push it into melee, double edged sword).
Rend (Soul Binder): Requires corpses, somewhat lengthy of a cooldown

Nightmare(Scarab): Takes quite a few levels to start killing army, can be dispelled
Corrosive Breath (Acid Reaver): Conic and short ranged.
Acid Sheath (Acid Reaver): Close ranged and small damage over time.
Rock Slide (Gravel): Not much of a consequence for this one, not as great of damage as holy strike
Gravel's Ultimate: Channeling.
Gale (Aboreal Crusader): Damage scales down every target.
Tangleweed (Aboreal Crusader): Set up time, can be destroyed, and triggered by a single unit only hitting one.
Wail (Arcane Mistress): Chance based and lengthy cooldown.
Blade Rain (Grim Hag): Channeling and close range.
Ultimate (Grim Hag): Long cast time lengthy cooldown.

Gyser (Oracle): Somewhat lengthy cooldown and your army can advance passed it preventing enemies to run into it.
Cauterize (Emberwrath): Requires buffs.
Pyroclasm (Emberwrath): Long cast time and lengthy cooldown.
Corona (Emberwrath): Minimum radius distance, damage over time, very lengthy cooldown.
Putrid Whatever's AoE: Channeling.
Entangle Seed (Putrid Whatever): Takes time target can get out of range of other units.
Terra Smash (Ascendant): Close range and not that great of damage.
Ravenous Dive (Ascendant): Close range and not that great of daamge.

As you can see there is no other ability that has good range, instant cast, a low cooldown, high damage, and doesn't degrade by number of targets in its effect. I'd say its radius is a small price to pay.

[Sparda963]

To add to Dek's post, its even worse if you take the talents that increase the dmg in the center of your holy strike. I think it goes up to at least 15%, so if you nail a hero dead on which isnt hard to do, your doing even closer dmg to the single target nuke.

Holy Strike may hit hard, but it has shit AoE. And you can miss.

Vengeance is what makes the Wizard so good. Alot of heroes have AoE nukes, that imo, are better overall.

Boooooooooze is goooooooooooood, aslo stfu!!!!!!

[Reaper]

Get back on topic now.

[DarkNemesis]

[Reaper] - Sorry, either contribute or don't post.