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Thread: GOOD/EVIL creature balancing for Good Keeper plays or in general

  
  1. #1
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    Default GOOD/EVIL creature balancing for Good Keeper plays or in general

    While playing the Good Keeper campaign I noticed the Good heroes and Evil creatures are not balanced at all for regular gameplay.

    EDIT: The first version of reworked creatures/heroes to make the game more balanced and fair.

    This is for r1821 nightly

    In this version
    - tunneler/bug dig like imps
    - tentacle buffed & monk slightly buffed. both reworked to have high dex/def
    - troll reworked into a ranged caster (experimental)
    - dragon given a melee attack and power reduced to 80 same as Knight
    - dark mistress has a freeze at lvl 9
    - warlock closer to wizard heal and rebound at lvl 4 & lvl 5
    - giant health buffed to 950 and dex buffed to 80
    - training & scavenging costs are evened out
    - training & research & manufacture skills evened out
    - multiple job assignment for certain units (experimental)
    - archer -50 health and reworked to get spells at same lvl as troll/spider
    - thief +50 more health

    Still to do:
    - even out hunger rate, fill rate and pay
    Attached Files Attached Files
    Last edited by trollworkout; May 16th, 2016 at 10:44.

  2. #2

    Default Re: GOOD/EVIL creature balancing for Good Keeper plays or in general

    Why should heroes be 'balanced' when they are used in operating a dungeon compared to evil creatures? Dungeon Keeper is not a multiplayer game, and if it where it is not a game where one side has to build a hero dungeon. This is a game of evil creatures operating in a dungeon, and the heroes invading the dungeon. The heroes are all fighters and the game is not intended with hero dungeons in mind. There is no 'good keeper'.

    That being said, as a novelty many people do like playing with the roles switched for once in the good campaign. But KeeperFX supports per-campaign configs, so it would make a lot more sense to strongly overhaul all creature files for just the good campaign, but that is something for the author of this campaign I think.

    Still would not go with your suggestions though,... for example the whole point of the giant is that it is slow, very high damage, low health. It's not a tank at all, making it a tank unbalances it. And the fact that imps are small and quick where tunnelers are slow and stronger just give them more identity. But thanks for the input.

  3. #3
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    Default Re: GOOD/EVIL creature balancing for Good Keeper plays or in general

    I am currently playing Good Keeper campaign and my creatures are underperforming Evil Keeper's creatures even if I outnumber them. One time I lost 20 heroes against 4 warlocks and a 3 spiders. Often I have to spam heal and lighting just to win fights.

    I realize now that the original DK dev team intended for heroes to be weaker than evil creatures so the game is not too hard. The idea was to have a lot of weak heroes to fight against. But if you play as a Good Keeper you only have 15-20 heroes to use. So you need to be just as tough. Plus there are numerous maps where I have to survive only by selling traps so I had to struggle by having 50% the manufacturing power of evil keepers.

    I have made most of the powerful spells like lighting and protect way longer to research and more expensive so I have to depend more on fighting. This combined with my higher defense, higher dexterity and a bit tanky giant, more armor dwarf plus a bit of a nerf to Avatar and Knight to bring them closer to evil Horny and Dragon now makes for more interesting and fair and challenging gameplay.

    I have also added Avatar summoning sacrifice Tunneler Samurai Knight which is closer to Horny not as badass as before.
    I have also added other sacrifices to get Wizard, Samurai, Giant, even corrupt a Barbarian into an Orc or corrupt a Wizard into a Warlock. This should make Good Keeper more or less equal with evil keeper although evil one still gets way more sacrifice options via KeeperFX.

    Originally I wanted like you said just for good campaign only but now I realize my changes make whole game more fun. Now you're fighting fairly and some hero units are much more usable.

    Archer a bit higher defense and higher manufacturing 3
    Dwarf is slower but high armor now which makes him tanky but not tough
    Thief a bit higher dexterity
    Tunneler has primary job DIG and secondary job TUNNEL so he will work both in good and evil campaigns
    Giant a bit more tanky.
    Avatar less op less strength and dexterity and defence
    Knight a bit less dexterity and defence
    Monk more dexteriy and defence
    Fairy less research 2
    Giant now has MANUFACTURE secondary job

    Witch will have the ability to turn enemies into chicken like most witches in fairytales turn ppl into frogs or sheep.


    While good guys are still pretty weak they are much more nimble and smart and less brute force and more crowd control and utility


    Thanks for replaying. I understand this is unorthodox. Looking from where you stand sure this may seem ODD. But if you play with my suggestions you will find Good Keper campaign way more fun and fair and it will feel like normal DK just flipped roles.
    Last edited by trollworkout; May 13th, 2016 at 23:38.

  4. #4

    Default Re: GOOD/EVIL creature balancing for Good Keeper plays or in general

    But the heroes are stronger,.... Play this map: stronger.zip

    I just put the heroes in a room against the evil creatures, gave the creatures a numerical advantage, and still the creatures get slaughtered by the heroes. And of course I did not include the avatar.

    And I'm sorry, but I'm not going to replay the Good Campaign, I've already played it before and I would change more. But I do like how easy it is in Dungeon Keeper to modify creature stats and give them new spells and abilities. There's nothing unorthodox about proposing different stats, many people have and all of them are different.

    You can never get the dwarf to work properly as an imp though, it will just not function no matter how you set the jobs, too much is hardcoded. The only think you can do for the good campaign is make the imp give all the sprites and stats of the tunneler. And turn tunnelers into imps.

    EDIT: Play it with the original or KeeperFX stats of course.
    I made screenshots. Before the fight:


    And after the fight:

    Notice how 6 heroes survived.
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Click image for larger version. 

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    Last edited by YourMaster; May 14th, 2016 at 00:08.

  5. #5
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    Default Re: GOOD/EVIL creature balancing for Good Keeper plays or in general

    see here the table at level 10 for vanilla values. you will see how most heros are weak as shit. most evil creatures are 2k+ health
    http://dungeonkeeper.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Creatures

    samurai and barbarian actually have more health than a giant :O


    I literarily created a table of equivalent creature/hero and tried to match them up and balance against one another

    Knight = Dragon both have heals both tanky Knight has rebound but less health and Dragon has more utility knight's dexterity reduced to that of a dragon
    Barbarian = Orc not many changes here both hate each other.
    Giant = Bile Demon Giant hits harder but has less spell ability and health. upping his health to 1000 and giving him MANUFACTURING job makes him a bit more like a bile demon
    Tunneler = Bug tunneler is weak like a bug and just as usless . i made him way more useful
    Thief = Fly both explore fly can fly and see invisible so thief gets a bit more dodging ability but fighting wise he's more like a weak demon spawn
    Wizard = Warlock wizard's research power got reduced. they hate each other.
    Avatar = Horny Avatar's health is reduced to 2k and damage to 100 and less defence and can be summoned like Horny can to balance him out I made him very expensive to keep and one of a kind flag on both and both cannot be turned into chicken but can be squashed by a boulder.
    Dwarf = Troll dwarf has less manufacturing but a bit more defense power making him more durable in combat although trolls can eventually shoot fireballs.
    Archer = Spider both slow or stun or freeze both have heavy crowd control and ranged damaging spells. archer gets higher defence
    Samurai = Dark Mistress this one hasn't been changed is all good. samurai is the only properly balanced hero
    demon spawn = this one is a mix of dwarf and thief's ability to become a knight
    skeleton = no equivalent
    witch = no equivalent .. but if i had to pick i'd say shes like a ghost or like a weak vampire flying and caster. her research power is 3 however.
    monk = vampire monk has higher defence and dexterity and more survivability therefore but not as much as a vampire. both same research value
    fairy = ghost although ghost is accessible to both i'd say they are both quite similar having drain lighting rebound and flying. fairy's research was lowered to 2 but oherwise both same.

    these two don't have any equivalent with heroes because there are more evil creatures that good creatures. hellhound is quite a strong unit that seeks and kills other enemies or imps . nothing like that for heroes.
    tentacle = this has no equivalent
    hellhound = this also no equivalent

    as you can see heroes only get a few good fighters knight , barbarian, samurai and giant while evil guys get orc, bile demon, dragon, hellhound, dark mistress, tentacle. out of these only knight , bile demon , dragon are great tanks. with my changes now giant is also a tank making both sides more even.

  6. #6
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    Default Re: GOOD/EVIL creature balancing for Good Keeper plays or in general

    Quote Originally Posted by YourMaster View Post
    But the heroes are stronger,.... Play this map: stronger.zip

    I just put the heroes in a room against the evil creatures, gave the creatures a numerical advantage, and still the creatures get slaughtered by the heroes. And of course I did not include the avatar.

    And I'm sorry, but I'm not going to replay the Good Campaign, I've already played it before and I would change more. But I do like how easy it is in Dungeon Keeper to modify creature stats and give them new spells and abilities. There's nothing unorthodox about proposing different stats, many people have and all of them are different.

    You can never get the dwarf to work properly as an imp though, it will just not function no matter how you set the jobs, too much is hardcoded. The only think you can do for the good campaign is make the imp give all the sprites and stats of the tunneler. And turn tunnelers into imps.

    EDIT: Play it with the original or KeeperFX stats of course.
    I made screenshots. Before the fight:
    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	Before.jpg 
Views:	975 
Size:	61.1 KB 
ID:	1651

    And after the fight:
    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	after.jpg 
Views:	976 
Size:	77.3 KB 
ID:	1652
    Notice how 6 heroes survived.
    you know what would be cool! a 1st person battles map.

    you get 4 players each starting with a creature that's more or less even or equal in fighting power. maybe you can balance it out.

    then each player gets a library with 10 resurrect special, 900k gold, a hatchery.

    you get no summon imp spell or anything.

    you have to possess your creature and do battles with the other players. whoever runs out of 10 resurrects loses the game.

  7. #7
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    Default Re: GOOD/EVIL creature balancing for Good Keeper plays or in general

    i did manage to make the tunneler work like an imp

    is prefect!

    PrimaryJobs = DIG
    SecondaryJobs = TUNNEL

    If you do this he acts like an imp 100% but also eats once in a while and gets paid. I tested it out and something about KeeperFX that makes him work now. In vanilla DK I could not do it! Something about tunneler was hardcoded to act like an idiot. But in KeeperFX works perfect.

  8. #8

    Default Re: GOOD/EVIL creature balancing for Good Keeper plays or in general

    But there is no equivalency, non at all. A Dwarf is no more a Troll than he is a Bile Demon or a Giant or a Fairy. Both sides are unique, one side has evil dungeon dwellers the other are goodly heroes that want to invade dungeons.
    When you put them in random pairs and say they should be equal in strength you might as well link up the avatar with the fly and give the latter a major boost because surely it will always lose the fight. And your pairs are just that random. A giant is a glass cannon type creature that does massive damage when he manages to hit but has low health so is vulnerable to large groups because he might die before his first hit. A bile demon is just the opposite, it has lots of health and area damage so he can easily take out groups but does not so well against single powerful foes.

    And heroes are more powerful then creatures, how much health they have is not relevant. Creatures with low health, like Fairies, Giants, Hell Hounds and Dark Mistresses are still good units. Groups of heroes will beat comparable groups of creatures in combat. They have more powerful fighters, and most of them have the very good rebound spell.

  9. #9
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    Default Re: GOOD/EVIL creature balancing for Good Keeper plays or in general

    im gonna try this map to test my game balance.

    some luck and randomness to do with it as well so will to a bunch of reruns to test it out.

    you may be right about the giant he might not need more health

    but knight and avatar both got nerfed too damn op

    samurai is deff too op i know that. maybe i should nerf him as well.

    the ones i reworked were
    monk, thief, archer, dwarf, giant ++
    knight, avatar --


    of course there is no equivalency these are two opposing sides. but if you had to pick the closest match to balance against that's what my list is

  10. #10

    Default Re: GOOD/EVIL creature balancing for Good Keeper plays or in general

    I see you also say heroes only get a few good fighters, and you exclude some of their most powerful creatures. Wizards, Monks, Fairies, Witches and Giants are all very powerful. Why don't you make those 5 heroes at lvl10 and a lvl 10 dwarf take on the 6 powerful creatures you name and see who wins?

    And no, your tunnelers do not work. Assign one to the training room and notice eventually he'll just wander off and will never continue training. There are several more issues like that.

    How can the Avatar be OP, he's the final boss of the game? Same for the knight, he's the final boss of the level and should face many of your creatures more or less alone?

    And your closest matches aren't closest matches at all,... the closest match to the giant would be the hell hound, they both do very high damage and die quickly. The fairy would be much better 'matched' against the mistress then against the ghost. The first two are extremely powerful ranged fighters with limited health, while the ghost is as weak as a beetle and the samurai is a melee fighter. And an archers functions much the same as a mistress in combat, a fast ranged unit that manages to outrun many melee creatures. A fly is a melee creature that simply dies. And even the other ones, sure a Wizard seems similar to a Warlock, but the Warlock is a very weak creature that you can already get in lvl3 while the wizard is one of the most powerful units in the game and kills a vampire or avatar in a one-on-one fight.

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