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

  
  1. #31
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    Default Re: GOOD/EVIL creature balancing for Good Keeper plays or in general

    As previously posted, I have decided to go about reworking some of the evil creatures as well as good heroes.

    I noticed that evil creatures are more designed for possession with Grenade, Invisibility which are not useful in combat. Sight is only useful for thieves in campaign when their steal gold while invisible but this type of behaviour is not a job that any creature can have. Also freeze is on weak high level creatures that take a long time to train like bug and tentacle making Spider the only effective freezer.

    A lot of heroes are pretty well balanced but many of them also get really handy spells like speed, freeze , drain, lightning, rebound, armour at early levels.


    So with all this in mind here are some possible rework ideas:

    Dragon = melee attack fist + fire breathing at level 1 and is immune to gas
    Warlock = poison gas instead of invisibility
    Troll = prefers RANGED with fireball at 3, speed at 4, poison gas at 7, rebound at 10 (he's sort of a weak warlock ranged caster without heal)
    Dark Mistress = should get freeze spell at higher level bringing her closer to Samurai
    Tentacle = should get freeze at 3 and armour at 5 and should be more tanky and deadly and should do primary job FREEZE _PRISONERS and should join the dungeon when 1 Prison tile is built
    Hellhound = guard instead of seek enemy
    Fly = lower fear multiplier to avoid most fights and just explore the dungeon
    Last edited by trollworkout; May 15th, 2016 at 19:07.

  2. #32

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

    So you're stepping away from giving the units a similar feel from how they are originally. A ranged troll or a DPS dragon are miles away from how they used to function of course. If you go this far, you might as well go all the way, start from scratch and redesign all units completely, which is much easier to balance then making tweaks in this one scenario which may be completely different in another.

  3. #33
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    Default Re: GOOD/EVIL creature balancing for Good Keeper plays or in general

    Oh not really stepping away but rather just minor reworks and additions to make units more balanced. Troll is indeed pretty far away from original. And dragon may get his melee removed potentially I am still toying with it.

    I wish I could get the other spells going like creature chicken spell and creature disease spell going. I'd like to give tentacle disease power.

    Oh man starting from scratch reworking everything I dunno if I'm up to it. That's a lot of work I am not worthy. I like to keep the flavour just balanced the two opposite sides.


    EDIT:

    Here are more updates

    Dragon = 1 Fist attack 1 Fire 4 Heal 7 Fire Bomb 9 Grenade 0 Word of Power
    Knight = 1 Sword 4 Heal 7 Rebound 0 Word of Power

    this change will make them both get similar value spells around same time.

    problem with dragon before is his breath does not level up in damage making him pretty useless late game as a damage dealer. giving him a bite attack fixes that but his strength is 90 too high and needs nerfing. he deals too much damage now.
    Last edited by trollworkout; May 15th, 2016 at 19:51.

  4. #34
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    Default Re: GOOD/EVIL creature balancing for Good Keeper plays or in general

    Quote Originally Posted by trollworkout View Post
    Oh not really stepping away but rather just minor reworks and additions to make units more balanced.

    Only a few of creatures got changed.

    I wish I could get the other spells going like creature chicken spell and creature disease spell going. I'd like to give tentacle disease power.
    By this point, you are completely reworking creature roles. Dragons are not designed to deal damage, Hellhounds are not supposed to have increased defense, Tentacles are not supposed to be associated with the prison at all, and Trolls are not supposed to be Warlock lite. You're extending beyond the scope of a balance patch, over into general mod territory (which just happens to have more balance between Hero and Creature units).

    Also, Mistress with Freeze is the most overpowered creature ever rofl

    EDIT: Actually, since the point is still to balance Creatures in combat against Heroes, Mistresses are actually made worse if you give them Freeze, as they now lose to any Hero with Rebound, whereas previously they had just the right moveset to beat those handily.
    Last edited by Mothrayas; May 15th, 2016 at 19:45.

    The Awakening


  5. #35
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    Default Re: GOOD/EVIL creature balancing for Good Keeper plays or in general

    not necessarily . she may lose battle against a wizard or fairy sure but then again those creatures already have freeze so is not like she wont get frozen. the idea is to balance them against their counterparts .

    so dragon vs knight should (in theory) battle forever

    samurai vs dark mistress should (in theory) end up both killing each other so is mostly about getting lucky rather than samurai having freeze + 80 damage while dark mistress has 60 damage and no freeze. not fair fight

    troll vs dwarf now sortof goes back and forth troll wins before dwarf gets rebound then loses until it gets rebound so it balanced again.
    Last edited by trollworkout; May 15th, 2016 at 19:59.

  6. #36
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    Default Re: GOOD/EVIL creature balancing for Good Keeper plays or in general

    Quote Originally Posted by trollworkout View Post
    not necessarily . she may lose battle against a wizard or fairy sure but then again those creatures already have freeze so is not like she wont get frozen.
    Actually, in vanilla DK1, the Mistress beats both the Fairy and Wizard despite the latter having Freeze because Freeze is only active half the time and during the other half, she gets enough time to inflict a lot of damage. The Wizard and Fairy don't have a lot of health, so even just one gap could be all the Mistress needs to kill them both.

    If the Mistress herself gets Freeze, and is frozen before she gets to cast it, then she is trapped in a repeating loop of being frozen by the enemy, then unfreezing and casting Freeze and getting frozen again, and then when she is unfrozen again the Wizard or Fairy can cast Freeze again. This way, the Mistress is guaranteed to lose against both.

    She also now loses against the Witch, which she used to beat outright, the Knight which was an even match at the very least, and even the Dwarf and Thief would be much tougher matches now.

    Quote Originally Posted by trollworkout View Post
    the idea is to balance them against their counterparts .

    so dragon vs knight should (in theory) battle forever
    samurai vs dark mistress should (in theory) end up both killing each other so is mostly about getting lucky rather than samurai having freeze + 80 damage while dark mistress has 60 damage and no freeze. not fair fight
    That is an extremely poor way of doing balance. You can't just test certain one-on-one matchups between specific pairs of creatures in a vacuum and expect an overall balanced result. In any actual game, different matchups will happen, and these matchups are completely unaccounted for using your method. This will result in very poor balance overall.

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  7. #37
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    Default Re: GOOD/EVIL creature balancing for Good Keeper plays or in general

    in a perfectly balanced game say evil keeper vs evil keeper they both get the same creatures spells and rooms and the game outcome is based on dungeon management and luck.

    but when two sides have different creatures best way to balance the game is find creatures that are alike and balance one against the other.

    in fact if i made orc = barbarian, knight = dragon, dark mistress = samurai ...and so forth then the game would be balanced is just creatures would look different but otherwise cast same spells have same stats.

    the best way to balance a game that involves units like RTS games is done by balancing against a role. giant = bile demon, knight = dragon , horny = avatar. those occupy similar roles.

    starcraft does the same thing like
    zerlings = zealot = marine

    league of legends does this
    jungle champions each have a similar jungle ability
    assasins all are weak and mobile
    tank creatures all have health and tanking potential
    they just do it differently but the combined effect is it all adds up to the same tanking potential

    what you're telling me is i should balance marine against dragoon cause what about team fights?! who cares. is about the roles they fill up not about how you team them up. group fights are called micromanagement and that's how you win the game. or in dungeon keeper you could say is dungeon management.


    and unbalanced creature pair for example

    if dragon gets heal at level 2 and knight gets it at level 7 is not fair (pre level 7 dragon always wins but not anymore)

    samurai has freeze and 80 damage dark mistress has 60 damage and no freeze. not fair 1 v 1 samurai always wins (but not anymore)
    Last edited by trollworkout; May 15th, 2016 at 20:24.

  8. #38
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    Default Re: GOOD/EVIL creature balancing for Good Keeper plays or in general

    Quote Originally Posted by trollworkout View Post
    in a perfectly balanced game say evil keeper vs evil keeper they both get the same creatures spells and rooms and the game outcome is based on dungeon management and luck.
    Which is technically correct, but that does not mean that the units are balanced between themselves.

    For example, in your balance patch, in Creature vs. Creature scenarios, the Mistress is so unbelievably broken that if I ever were to play a game in this state I would literally not use a single other creature other than Warlocks for research fodder, because Mistresses in your balance patch are so broken that they completely shut down every other creature and render them all obsolete in combat.

    The matchup between two Creature players is even, but the lack of balance makes it extremely degenerate to play, creature variety is shut down, and the game would be deader than DK2, in which any attempt at competition was completely shutdown by Black Knight rushing, another degenerate and overpowered tactic.

    Quote Originally Posted by trollworkout View Post
    but when two sides have different creatures best way to balance the game is find creatures that are alike and balance one against the other.

    in fact if i made orc = barbarian, knight = dragon, dark mistress = samurai ...and so forth then the game would be balanced is just creatures would look different but otherwise cast same spells have same stats.

    the best way to balance a game is based by balancing against a role. say tank. giant = bile demon, knight = dragon , horny = avatar. those occupy similar roles.

    you can't tell me that tunneler is same as samurai.. that doesn't add up. but you can tell me that dark mistress = samurai. they both hate each other have similar stats and get attracted by same room.

    wizard = warlock
    troll = dwarf
    thief = demonspawn both grow into knight and dragon which are also comparable



    and unbalanced creature pair for example

    if dragon gets heal at level 2 and knight gets it at level 7 is not fair
    Have you ever learned any game design theory? I don't think you ever have. Because this is so wrong that I don't even have any words for it.



    The only way you could possibly gain balance this way is if every counterpart was completely and entirely identical in every stat, every moveset, and everything else. And even then, you don't have two balanced factions, you have one faction with two cosmetic options.

    The Awakening


  9. #39
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    Default Re: GOOD/EVIL creature balancing for Good Keeper plays or in general

    btw if you're thinking i am pulling this out of my butt think again

    i am currently deving games in my spare time and learning a lot about game design. balancing games esp RTS with various sides is a serious issue and involves a lot of little changes and a lot of playtesting those changes.

    rts specifically can be summarized as : micro and macro (or meta) game
    see here http://quarterview.com/?p=434

    macro is for example building rooms, creatures level up, creatures have spells and attack other creatures, you can place traps and spells. generic stuff

    micro is using certain creatures in certain situations, moving specific creatures to do specific jobs, placing certain traps in certain places or casting certain spells in certain situations.

    micro is based on player decision say for example saving low hp creatures from battle or placing ranged casters farther away from battle etc . this is something that human players can do best.

    team fight or group fights or group combination is a micromangement player decision. is not the group fight but the tools you give the player that's the macro that where the balancing is done. at the macro level.
    Last edited by trollworkout; May 15th, 2016 at 20:41.

  10. #40
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    Default Re: GOOD/EVIL creature balancing for Good Keeper plays or in general

    If you're trying to make a point by saying you're deving games in your spare time, that's pretty cute. I dev games for a living.

    I'm not sure what that article you linked has to do with balancing. It's an article about the difference between micro and macro gameplay, that's nothing to do with balancing. I'm not going to read through it all to dig for the point regarding balance, if there even is any. But if you insist on putting out sources, I may give you some examples of actual literature on game design rather than online articles on the internet. The internet is just filled with all forms of bad advice and it's hard to sort the good from the bad and the useless. Books typically have more credible and experienced writers behind them.

    Regarding balancing, there is one simple rule that applies for balancing any sort of game (including fighting games, RTS games, shooter games, you name it). That rule is: Every balance aspect affects every other balance aspect.

    Every change you do to one creature, affects the way it matches up to every other creature. If you give the Mistress Freeze, it makes it even with the Samurai maybe, but it also makes it practically unbeatable against literally the entire Creature faction as well as half of the Hero faction now. That makes it very centralizing in any game involving other Creature users, which means the Mistress is overcentralizing, which means the game is unbalanced by definition.

    Balance is a very fickle thing, which is why true balance is almost impossible to achieve in any game with different factions or characters. Do not think easy of it.

    The Awakening


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