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mefistotelis
March 14th, 2010, 10:25
I just noticed that dexterity fix and increase in attack power on higher creature levels have influenced gameplay on some maps.

I just played map 15 - where there are two keepers besides human. In this map, at some point a hero party emerges and goes towards blue keeper. In original DK, blue keeper usually (not always) gets destroyed, but then green keeper is attacked, and he easily kills the remains of hero force.

In KeeperFX, the hero party always destroys both keepers (sooner or later the green keeper diggs to water, and then the knights that survived battle with blue are heading toward him).

Maybe hero parties should be modified to be a bit weaker in KeeperFX?

Mothrayas
March 14th, 2010, 10:31
Modify the hero creatures' stats to something lower in the script for that level. Or redesign the level so the AI won't dig out as early.

It's not necessary to modify hero strength in the entire game and lower the challenge in almost all other levels for this.

Metal Gear Rex
March 14th, 2010, 10:32
Modify the hero creatures' stats to something lower in the script for that level. Or redesign the level so the AI won't dig out as early.

It's not necessary to modify hero strength in the entire game and lower the challenge in almost all other levels for this.

If you noticed my skirmish version of this map, I have made impentrable rock at the edges so the computers don't dig out too soon by accident. This provids a much greater challange.

Trotim
March 14th, 2010, 11:15
Modify the hero creatures' stats to something lower in the script for that level. Or redesign the level so the AI won't dig out as early.

It's not necessary to modify hero strength in the entire game and lower the challenge in almost all other levels for this.
The problem is that it's unlikely this is the only map with this problem, you know?

The dexterity fix is fine, though I'd love to see the most common battle algorithms (especially how it is calculated if an attack hits or not AND how damage done is calculated on normal attacks). It's probably the other thing that's breaking that level - I forgot, what exactly did that "increase in attack power" do? It would be a lot easier to judge the situation if we could compare all stats before all changes and how it is now.

I agree that level 15 should have some fix applied to it, but the general issue has to be addressed as well.

mefistotelis
March 14th, 2010, 11:22
I forgot, what exactly did that "increase in attack power" do? It would be a lot easier to judge the situation if we could compare all stats before all changes and how it is now.


Melee damage is no longer restricted to 255 (and can go much higher for high level creatures, especially when "lucky shot" happens and it's doubled).
Word Of Power makes damage (originally, there was an error that prevented it)
Spells for creatures above lv7 have correct stats (originally invalid values were used, so high level spells had incorrect damage and duration)

Trotim
March 14th, 2010, 14:41
Melee damage is no longer restricted to 255 (and can go much higher for high level creatures, especially when "lucky shot" happens and it's doubled).
Word Of Power makes damage (originally, there was an error that prevented it)
Spells for creatures above lv7 have correct stats (originally invalid values were used, so high level spells had incorrect damage and duration)

Alright, those all seem sensible enough fixes though. I suppose it IS only the original campaign that should be adjusted, then.

Krizzie
March 14th, 2010, 19:06
Melee damage is no longer restricted to 255 (and can go much higher for high level creatures, especially when "lucky shot" happens and it's doubled).
Word Of Power makes damage (originally, there was an error that prevented it)
Spells for creatures above lv7 have correct stats (originally invalid values were used, so high level spells had incorrect damage and duration)


-Melee works fine nothing to change there

-WOP is way too strong now, maybe they removed the damage on purpose

-Spells like Heal are nerved really bad now, I would like to see that restored back to the way it was. At high level the spell hardly works anymore. Dragons are even more useless now and support units don't heal enough to take some blows.

-Remove some spells from creatures
-Knight with WoP, combined with the damage he's a real pain and not Knight worthy since he is a melee fighter no magic user.
-Horny with Projectile? If thats a workaround to let him use slow, remove them both. Again he is a melee fighter to support unit.

Metal Gear Rex
March 14th, 2010, 22:44
-Melee works fine nothing to change there

-WOP is way too strong now, maybe they removed the damage on purpose

-Spells like Heal are nerved really bad now, I would like to see that restored back to the way it was. At high level the spell hardly works anymore. Dragons are even more useless now and support units don't heal enough to take some blows.

-Remove some spells from creatures
-Knight with WoP, combined with the damage he's a real pain and not Knight worthy since he is a melee fighter no magic user.
-Horny with Projectile? If thats a workaround to let him use slow, remove them both. Again he is a melee fighter to support unit.

Well WoP was set to do higher damage, I don't like the "They did it on purpose" excuse because not everything they did there was on purpose. I have it set to 80. At 150, the damage it does is 420 but at 80, it deals 224. This is of course, at level 10 which all creatures except the default Warlock obtain it.

You have a problem with some of the spells? Well you can easily change them yourself. Those are made from DL's patch. But if you don't want to do that, I can hand you a copy of the original data. I undid mostly everything, just for the sake of having it.

Krizzie
March 14th, 2010, 23:26
Well I'd rather see them "fixed" I don't want to modify the game to my needs. I mean it's not that the game was imbalenced or something.

It's only the Healspell

A Dragon used to have around 25% healing at level 10 and now maybe 5%? Even at level 2 which it used to have around 50% it might come close to 25%. As a Tank that's just not good enough to withstand heavy punnishment.

Same for some support creatures a warlock at level 10 had around 70% healing, now not even half of that.

Metal Gear Rex
March 14th, 2010, 23:33
Well I'd rather see them "fixed" I don't want to modify the game to my needs. I mean it's not that the game was imbalenced or something.

It's only the Healspell

A Dragon used to have around 25% healing at level 10 and now maybe 5%? Even at level 2 which it used to have around 50% it might come close to 25%. As a Tank that's just not good enough to withstand heavy punnishment.

Same for some support creatures a warlock at level 10 had around 70% healing, now not even half of that.

Ah I can send you the original data then still. I fixed the WoP to 80 value because 220 is what the guide says for maximum damage, and I take it that that was their intention. How else would they be getting this information? 224 is the closest possible number to it.

Percentage of health isn't how it is calqulated, I'm sure. I think I saw some value for it, I don't remember but basically it is healing at a number not percentage. Therefore it doesn't make sense for it to be said not to work just because the percentage isn't right or the same or whatever.

But maybe I'm wrong, how does it work Mefisto? I remember seeing "Duration" but that was it. Does it basically use the same value as the Keeper Heal Spell fully charged?

DragonsLover
March 15th, 2010, 01:32
Just an important quick note: in my older versions of my unofficial patch, I added a second :lord: to compensate for the :melee: skill of the :dragon:. In my latest patch, I removed :melee: and thus, I also removed the second :lord:.

Next, it's about the WOD spell: that spell shouldn't cause TOO MUCH damage. MGR's value of 80 seems good, but I guess it should still be a bit lower.

If creatures' Heal spell has been "nerfed", it's also another big problem. Creatures should be able to heal to at least 1/4 of their health at high level. If the Heal spell doesn't heal enough, then it becomes somewhat useless and weak.

I guess it's just a matter of balancing.

Metal Gear Rex
March 15th, 2010, 01:35
Just an important quick note: in my older versions of my unofficial patch, I added a second :lord: to compensate for the :melee: skill of the :dragon:. In my latest patch, I removed :melee: and thus, I also removed the second :lord:.

Next, it's about the WOD spell: that spell shouldn't cause TOO MUCH damage. MGR's value of 80 seems good, but I guess it should still be a bit lower.

If creatures' Heal spell has been "nerfed", it's also another big problem. Creatures should be able to heal to at least 1/4 of their health at high level. If the Heal spell doesn't heal enough, then it becomes somewhat useless and weak.

I guess it's just a matter of balancing.

Well one solution for the heal spell for now is to reduce the recharge time. And I still haven't fully tested the 80 value of WoP but I'm trying to... System overheating is starting to really piss me off... :mad:

Ah well it is time to take it to the other computer, unfortunately that's in my room and I must prepare myself to be attacked 24/7 by kittens...

Madkill
March 15th, 2010, 03:22
The heal spell seems fine for the dragons, considering they seem tougher in FX than in the original DK but their heal spell does a decent amount to say the least.

I haven't had one dead dragon yet and they've taken quite a beating, what were the battle conditions you put your dragons under, krizzle?


I do have one thing which bothers me about KeeperFX, the Lord of the Land seems pathetically weak in-terms of toughness, they just seem to die too easily, I get the feeling that a level 10 Giant would beat a level 10 Lord of the Land.

P.S. I'm getting some odd freezing issues, I run the game in its basic resolution but at the odd moment the game will freeze.
Its usually when there's a lot of rooms or very large rooms, or a lot of rooms, large rooms and a large digging order given to the imps. (I actually reached the imp dig-limit which I had no idea existed)
The freezes worry me since the second to last level has a lot of workshops, courtesy of the blue keeper.

Purewolfie
March 15th, 2010, 06:52
Ive lost LOADS of dragons, level 10 ones that being on some of the custom campaigns, pretty sure they all use the same config am I right?

Either way dragons being tanks is no longer the best option out there, infact due to the changes the dragon to me has somewhat LOST its usefulness, being the best creature (or so I thought) in the game, down to a mid-card one. I have even witnessed losing dragons to spiders.. which just seems so wrong its unreal, if anything needs looking at, its that damn freeze spell, you could even finish a whole game with an army of spiders, I mean a entire campaign aswell I may add with level 5+ spiders, does that freeze effect stack up if loads of them do it at one time? I have witnessed spiders killing a low level avatar for crying out loud, the same low level avatar kicked the crap out of some mid level dragons... worlds gone mad I tell ya :-/

Metal Gear Rex
March 15th, 2010, 09:22
Ive lost LOADS of dragons, level 10 ones that being on some of the custom campaigns, pretty sure they all use the same config am I right?

Either way dragons being tanks is no longer the best option out there, infact due to the changes the dragon to me has somewhat LOST its usefulness, being the best creature (or so I thought) in the game, down to a mid-card one. I have even witnessed losing dragons to spiders.. which just seems so wrong its unreal, if anything needs looking at, its that damn freeze spell, you could even finish a whole game with an army of spiders, I mean a entire campaign aswell I may add with level 5+ spiders, does that freeze effect stack up if loads of them do it at one time? I have witnessed spiders killing a low level avatar for crying out loud, the same low level avatar kicked the crap out of some mid level dragons... worlds gone mad I tell ya :-/

So you're saying Giants suck now because they lost to Archers but Barbarians are gods all of a sudden because they beat the Archer senseless?

Pick your battles wisely, even though Giants beat Barbarians, their slow speed make them difficult against a faster paced support unit Archer. Remember this, the Dragon does low damage, and the Avatar has heal as early as level 4. This means Dragons are useless against the Avatar pretty much, unless you have other melee attackers on him and the Dragons are level 7 or above.

I do agree, though, I do think Dragons aren't the tanks they used to be. I played Abbandon and battled using Dragons and Bile Demons. I found the Dragons drew the quits quickly, and I had to drop them back in their Lair (Notice I didn't leave them there to die) and let the Bile Demons handle it. They had a high health which made them tough. The Dragons had heal and stuff, so they recovered quite quickly and before the battle was over they were back in and fighting.

Even so, it is a little disappointing overall. In my own patch I have given the Dragon Protect at level 5. It still isn't fully tested but from what I saw it is pretty effective.

Edit: Also, one thing I noticed. With DL's values for dexterity, a level 10 Warlock got the dexterity of 99 or something like that... Originally his level 1 value was 100. This really does effect the game a bit, because of the "Defense" value which also is stale the whole time.

Mefisto, do you think the dexterity could be fixed beyond simply making it impossible to stick to 255 at max, maybe make it go beyond 255 like the other values you mentioned? Correct me if you have done so already.

Also, you said you can make strength go beyond 255 so what's the current limit?

Also what percentage to each of the values go up by?

Krizzie
March 15th, 2010, 10:14
The heal spell seems fine for the dragons, considering they seem tougher in FX than in the original DK but their heal spell does a decent amount to say the least.

I haven't had one dead dragon yet and they've taken quite a beating, what were the battle conditions you put your dragons under, krizzle?


Well I just used them like I always use them. To take a beating. but with heal that makes up for less than 1 punch of an enemy it's useless.

I know that Heal works with numbers and not with Percentages but I was using the health bar as an example. With the old settings most melee creatures with Heal had around 25% at level 10 exept for the Avatar which had maybe 5% or 10%. Support creatures had around 70% with the fairy 100% Since she has no health at al.
Decreasing the load time of the spell might help also, but than you have to change that for every creature since some need it faster than others.

Cause of this I have been using Orcs/Mistriss and Spiders a lot, since they make a great team together, normally I would've had Dragons in there too, but now I throw them back after researching everything. They aren't worth their payday price anymore.

About the Spiders I think Hail should be a little later on them (Maybe level 6 or 7), they kick serious ass at level 5 now. With 2 or 3 you can freeze an enemy for ever and with hail they reach level 10 in no time at all.

Purewolfie
March 15th, 2010, 17:37
(Notice I didn't leave them there to die)

The way dragons used to function you dint need to babysit them all the time to make sure they dint fall over dead, you spend that time on imps and warlocks :p

Im not saying dragons are completely broken, they are still decent units, but compared to the originals they are pretty weak.

At least with these new dragons you need to keep an eye on them and you have to get involved more, its just a huge change compared to what most have been used to over the past decade :p

Its certainly made the game a challenge again, it used to be the case that Asoon as you got dragons you just had a army of them and steamrolled everything, not the case anymore.. which is good ;)

Krizzie
March 15th, 2010, 19:34
Dragons were never good Steam rollers. ;) But good to keep enemies occupied while the other creatures rest which pack more of a punch.

mefistotelis
March 15th, 2010, 20:29
Ok, here are my initial conclusions:


WOP damage reduced to 85. Note that this max value is only used when creature stands very near to the caster; damage gets lower on distance.
I will look into heal spell and try to make it more powerful
DragonsLover will provide me with original campaign levels patch.


I will probably add more when I'll read again everything you wrote.
(sorry for not answering questions - have no time now)

mefistotelis
March 18th, 2010, 18:31
(about heal spell) I remember seeing "Duration" but that was it. Does it basically use the same value as the Keeper Heal Spell fully charged?
Yes, it uses keeper spell, but overcharged at the creature level (lv1 creature - no overcharge, lv8,9,10 - max charged).
The duration is (i think) the spell recharge time.

I just adjusted the percentage increases of creature parameters (reduced it for dexterity and defense). Now the values are:

/** Percentage of creature pay increase for every experience level. */
#define CREATURE_PAY_INCREASE_ON_EXP 35
/** Percentage of creature damage increase for every experience level. */
#define CREATURE_DAMAGE_INCREASE_ON_EXP 20
/** Percentage of spell range/area of effect increase for every experience level. */
#define CREATURE_RANGE_INCREASE_ON_EXP 10
/** Percentage of creature health increase for every experience level. */
#define CREATURE_HEALTH_INCREASE_ON_EXP 35
/** Percentage of creature strength increase for every experience level. */
#define CREATURE_STRENGTH_INCREASE_ON_EXP 35
/** Percentage of creature dexterity increase for every experience level. */
#define CREATURE_DEXTERITY_INCREASE_ON_EXP 15
/** Percentage of creature defense increase for every experience level. */
#define CREATURE_DEFENSE_INCREASE_ON_EXP 20
/** Percentage of creature parameter increase for every experience level.
* Used for all parameters that have no separate definition. */
#define CREATURE_PROPERTY_INCREASE_ON_EXP 35

Also, I've increased (nearly twice) the strength of heal spell at higher levels. On low levels, I left it as it was before. This means lv10 dragon will get ~14% heath increase - still not much, but I don't want this spell to be overpowered.

Krizzie
March 18th, 2010, 19:28
The heal spell was never overpowered imo.

I will check it out when the version is released. :)

p_hansson
April 11th, 2010, 20:53
Bile demons could be toned down a bit IMO (made more expensive to train/pay or something would suffice). Reason: You can get them pretty much instantly on game start, they produce traps very well, and most importantly they are excellent fighters suffocating everything else on level >= 4. All while being fairly cheap. If we get multiplayer working (hint hint) I fear everyone will rush to use them.

Dragons appear to be fine now, they were ridiculous in original DK.

At least, these are my conclusions with 0.36 data files and fresh .EXE built from repository.

Mothrayas
April 11th, 2010, 21:46
Just nerf gas damage and make them take longer to train. Making them more costly isn't going to change much. Bile Demons cost 38 gold per whatever-time-unit to train, which is already relatively high - and yet I never have problems getting them all up, so that won't work.

Krizzie
April 11th, 2010, 21:53
Bile Demons overpowered?

A horde of Orcs packs a bigger punch and are Cheaper to train and maintain.

Mothrayas
April 11th, 2010, 21:58
Bile Demons overpowered?

A horde of Orcs packs a bigger punch and are Cheaper to train and maintain.

No, they don't. Orcs have 65 strength while Bile Demons have 80. Bile Demons have also nearly twice as much health (1200 vs 700), and if you have a group of level 4+ Bile Demons they gas any horde of enemies to death within seconds.

Krizzie
April 11th, 2010, 22:06
Orcs might be weaker, but are faster and hit more often.

Gas never really bothers me, I just played one of the Ancient Keeper maps, where one keeper had only level 10 Bile Demons and they were overpowered really easy by me. :P

p_hansson
April 12th, 2010, 12:46
I think Orcs aren't that good until they get speed.

I still think bile demons are very good at level 4 specifically when they've just got their "fart". I suppose gas is more effective on low-tier units. Again, the point is you get them on most maps directly on game start unlike orcs that are delayed a bit by barracks requirement. So training them to level 4 and then owning a lot of stuff early in the game without even building a library is too easy.

I may as well mention I try to attack as soon as possible so I never stick around and train creatures to level > 5 if I have a choice. I don't doubt orcs are better level 10 units.

Mothrayas
April 12th, 2010, 15:20
Like I said, reduce gas damage and most of the problem's fixed.

p_hansson
April 12th, 2010, 17:17
Yes that does sound like a decent solution. (Rather than the one I first thought of which won't impact early game much...)

Krizzie
April 12th, 2010, 17:49
Maybe give the gasbomb at level 3 (instead of 2) and the fart at level 5 (instead of 4)?

AstraL
September 10th, 2010, 15:20
I think rebalancing necessarily need

1. weak creatures need to improve (fly on 50%, beetle 30%, tuneller 10%, etc)

2. Traps damage increase(improve).

3. increase cost of attacking spells (for multiplayer balance)

DragonsLover
September 11th, 2010, 07:35
Reduce gas damage? Will see... EDIT: It seems to be impossible to alter the damage done by the Poison Gas. Looks like it's been hardcoded.

Fly and Beetle have been slightly improved. I don't want them to improve too much as they're mostly used for sacrifices.

As for traps damage, I couldn't find anything in the KeeperFX configuration files, even the "trap lightning" damage seems wrong. It seems to be hardcoded. Only Mefisto knows.

Increase cost of attacking spells.... the Keeper ones you mean? I don't know. I was thinking to drastically alter them, for example, to avoid to use them anywhere on explored areas, only inside SOE spell (because there's some special code involving it to reduce the damage done by the strike) or during fights, but then, it would be stupid to cast the SOE spell over an explored area only to cast Lightning... I don't know. Anyway, it requires some coding, so it won't be for tomorrow.