The incredibly tedious tooltips! One of the biggest problems, along with balance, is clarity. The information is unclear on a lot of things and this applies in two big areas: confusing identity and a lack of information. While I am slowly working on the identity issue with buildings, units, and races as a whole, I also need to fix the information provided to players. This is done mostly through tooltips. Due to that, it is easy. But at the same time it is incredibly tedious, time consuming, and is something mapmakers tend to avoid doing because it feels so dumb and insigifncant. But with that said, it is still important. Not only for information, but psychology. Its an actual psychological impact that red colors naturally make you agressive, blue makes you think long-term, and yellow makes you root for the little guy. As such as part of me updating all the tooltips, I will be creating a theme with each team. Evil is red, mortals are blue, and sargeras is yellow, at least as far as tooltips go. This should hopefully encourage a proper mindset. Although if this only results in mortals turtling further, then IM MAKING THEM RED TOO! Red for everybody!
updated tooltips for the following units:
Archer
Felguard
With these two units having updated tooltips, people should be able to tell me how it is.
As I saw that having a portal ability was in such high demand, and I think it is actually a good way of encouraging demonic offensiveness, then I have made it.
Chevalier made portals with the ability to self-destruct. I won't be doing that. They lose power and eventually self-destruct on their own, but not when you tell it to. That, to me, takes the risk out of the reward when it should work both ways.
Summoner's new ability:
Open Portal -
60 sec cooldown
60 sec duration
This spell creates two waygate portals. One on the destination, and the other on the caster. You can then shove things into it.
The spell does not summon portals into mountains and giant rocks or in the ocean/nether, but it DOES summon them into trees if you aim it there, rendering it useless at times, so be careful where you aim it and where you are standing when you cast it. You will want your units to be able to reach it.
i have also been looking at giving more units a clear identity.
Felguard has a new ability:
Felblade-
Reduces armor of the unit it attacks by 3
Reduced attack speed from 1 to 1.25
This ability should give it more identity as a solid front-line unit with an offensive tone. It wants to kill stuff. It is not an attack-speed based unit, but rather one based around strong hits. It doesn't want its damage to be shrugged off easily. It wants to actually hurt! He should make up the bulk of your army with his high base stats for a low cost unit, if you are going to for quantity.In hard numbers this can actually be considered a mild nerf to mild buff. Because the amount of damage reduction 3 armor gives ranges from 6 to 16%, and his attack speed has been reduced by 25% to compensate. Yet in turn the other demons also can hit the unit harder. So 1v1, its a mild nerf. 2v1 its a mild buff.
Hits harder, but less often. Allows allies to hit harder too.
Felhound has been modified:
devour magic-
Devour magic now explodes 5 mana on attack (from 2)
Devour magic now deals 5 damage per mana exploded (from 1)
Removed stone skin
Felhound collision size reduced from 5 to 3
Felhound attack speed reduced from 1 to 1.75
Felhound attack damage increased from 8-12 to 12-15
Felhound, I want to have a clear identity as a mana hunter, an assassin. you see something with mana, you go after it. You burn it alive. You tear it apart. What I have done here is technically a buff because if you see something with mana, you can squirm a squad of felhounds through stuff and after it. You can pack a bunch of felhounds around 1 unit.
In a lot of ways this can be considered a buff. Its damage looks to be 5dps against normal targets, but against targets with mana it deals a total of 30 per hit. Basically it hurts a lot.
The risk is that Felhounds are squishy. Really squishy. Anything not mage related can kill a felhound 1 on 1. Might be a bit close, but in terms of raw power against non-mana targets, felhounds will fall behind. This is why I reduced the collision in half, so that you can get to what you want.
At the same time, trying to squeeze a bunch of felhounds THROUGH an enemy army to reach the sweet sweet mana may end up with a bunch of them dieing, or having their health down.
Whether this risk and reward is enough, I will have to see. I don't want them to be considered utterly useless on the front lines either, you can squeeze a bunch of felhounds into the frontlines to help your army. They just need a clear identity as an assassin.
The biggest concern is Sargeras. Sargeras is an odd race, as he can range wildly from OP to useless. He already kills felhounds easily, but the increase in damage may be too much against him. To compensate, I am thinking of removing the magic immunity. Thinking about it anyway. Just like they deal a lot more damage to him now, he should be able to deal more to them. It is one of the things I will specifically be looking at in the future.
Dreadlords have been changed:
Removed Summon Infernal
Added Raise Dead-
Summons 2 skeletons every 8 seconds
Added Voidwalk (windwalk)- (work in progress, so if it isn't added yet, it will be soon.)
Allows the Dreadlord to be invisible for 15 seconds on a 12 sec cd.
The identity of the Dreadlord is, currently, an expensive bad front line unit that summons a bunch of infernals (which is OP) and uses corrupt to 1-hit-ko enemy units and gain an enemy unit in the process, all while being much too big to actually get in there and do something. The default result is that they can't use corrupt because they can't get in, they are easily smashed by Sargeras or anything that can get to them, and about all they can do is stand in the back throwing infernals like softballs. Suffice to say thats not good for multiple reasons. Due to the Infernals, a good dreadlord is stupidily good. (a 125 cost value summon from a 55 cost unit? Really?) While a bad dreadlord is utterly useless. (A 55 cost unit that can't really get into a fight, has horrible stats, and is practically 1-shot by Sargeras or anything ranged.) While I can appreciate the idea of a skill-based unit that can range from good to bad depending on how you use him, this is too far in both extremes. At the same time, his identity is that of a summoner who summons units twice as big as himself. That just becomes an exploit to cheap-as-hell mass infernals!
So I am refining the dreadlord identity. The dreadlord, in lore, is that of an agent. They are skilled in necromancy magic and are often lurking in dark corners and are assassins. That is also the image I want to keep intact because that gives the one unit a great deal of strength through magic and options. They can be assassins (using corrupt or voidwalk), they can be sneaky to either get in or get out, or both (using voidwalk), and they can be a good support for the army in a fight from the backline (raising the dead to bolster your frontline or corrupt to do the same from behind enemy lines). Each of these abilities are good, and can be used to make him a very adaptive unit. Adaptability combined with sneakiness is, in and of itself, a very strong identity to have. It means you have to think, you have to have a plan. That is the identity of the Dreadlord. Not a good unit in stats, but in the hands of someone with a plan, can sneak into worlds and sow chaos.
succubus has a new ability:
Charm:
Converts an enemy unit to your side for a few seconds. (Only works on units, not heros or buildings.)
Succubus, to me, fits into a very unusual place. Ranged, yes. Damage dealer? No she doesn't strike me as a damage dealer or assassin type. After considering her, her lore, and the position I want her to be in, I have decided on a controlling mage. She controls the enemy. To this end she has curse, which is on autocast and reduces a fair number of good stats for the enemy, and now charm. Now, there is something to be understood in the difference between what you expect charm to do and what it actually does. Charm is usually done to steal an enemy unit, causing you a 2 for 1 trade in card terms. You kill an enemy unit while gain one. Its a good trade. However the way my charm works is that it is very VERY temporary. It is only long enough for the unit to stop attacking you, to attack things around it, for the enemy to possibly attack it, and to keep your enemy from using that unit for a few seconds. It is like a more lethal version of hex. It lasts only a short time. Yet, if you use it right, it can give you the control of the enemy unit you need to make that difference matter, esspecially if used on the correct unit. Now, I can imagine this spell can be used to be absolutely OP in the right hands. It can be stupidily good, esspecially as easy as Succubus is to mass. To that end, it costs so much mana that she can't do much else if you want to go that route with her.
I think that this spell could be exciting for both sides. Because the person using it has a brief window to take control of an enemy unit, while the mortal player understands that it is only for a brief few seconds and unlike Hex, this ability can have a lot more to it with a much larger degree of skill involved.
One thing that would be really interesting to see is perhaps charming an enemy Orc Warlord, immediately having him cast Roar for your side, and telling him to kill a shaman for the brief time you have him. Or charming an entire squad of paladins rapidly, reviving your own stuff, and letting them go. What you do with it is up to the demon player, and I look forward to seeing what kind of stuff they can come up with. Who knows, they might surprise me.
Succubus attack speed has been increased to 1.75 from 1
Succubus attack damage has been increased from 6-8 to 9-15
This change in damage should allow her to feel less like a straight damage dealer, so you rely more on her control, while still allowing her to be useful.
Infernal has a new ability:
Planetary Entry:
Basically blink... But it looks cool, so it still feels like you are summoning an infernal.
Infernal has a very clear identity already, but is often considered a bit differentely. In lore, the Infernal is constructed somewhere and then thrown onto a planet later. People tend to associate infernals with a summon unit more than an areal drop, and I want to shift it both toward a more realistic way, a fair way (so you don't have a 55 cost unit summoning a 125 cost unit every minute...), and which gives the infernal something few other units can have: Self=reliance. All units, except for the Voidwalker and Nether drake, must rely on something else to move. The infernal doesn't need that. They are so big that I want them to not have to rely on others to do what you gotta do.
But more than that, I want them to have a stronger identy as an ODST. If you know Halo, then ODST means Orbital Drop Shock Trooper. Think Mandalorians. Think halo ODST. Think the Master chief. THINK BADASS!! The Infernal is a unit that I want to have an identity that you are gonna just throw it into the middle of the enemy army or base, and just let it sow all KINDS of chaos and mayhem!
Hell, I might just play demon for the sheer joy of making a squad of these babies and just throwing them at someone. Forget the rest of the demonic invasion! I got what I need right here!
The only unfortunate thing about them is that unless you specifically use Summon Legion or overwhelm the enemy, odds are they going to die.
BUT IT WILL BE A GLORIOUS DEATH AS THEY DIE STANDING ON A MOUNTAIN OF BODIES!!
Archer has a new ability:
Headshot:
The unit has a 10% chance to crit for 2x.
Archer hp from 300 to 125.
Archer attack speed from 4 to 2 seconds.
The archer is in an odd place for me. Yes, she is supposed to deal damage. Yes, she is supposed to be ranged. But at the last time I checked she had the greatest hp/damage value for her cost of any unit in the game. I will be toning her stats down as needed, as people play the game and I see how much of a doozy she is, but this ability in her kit should help make clear the fact that she is supposed to be a ranged dps.
decreased hp of corrupted tower to 350 from 1500
decreased attack of corrupted tower to 10 from 40
decreased attack speed of corrupted tower to 1 from .9
I found that demons have a tendency to actually take turrets from humans. The corrupted towers are much stronger, resulting in a kind of "plague" that humans simply cnanot deal with. So I am nerfing it to be equal to normal human turrets.
I plan to completely remove that ability to take buildings, but that will be a bit later once I figure out how the mechanics of that particular skill works. I am open to people having a lot of different strategies, but you shouldn't feel that your own base will turn on you. One of the mindsets of a base is security. You should feel most secure in a base, not the most vulnerable.
Another problem found is the orc's innate lack of anti-air. I have made a change in turn.
Raider has a new ability!
Net:
The unit will automatically pull air units to the ground when it goes to attack them.
I want the horde to stay feeling like a front-line race with a lot of 'CHAAAAAAAAAARGE' feel. Much like the Orcs of Warhammer40k. Ranged is not their speciality. So choosing between ranged units and giving one of them more functionality, I went with this route. The skill is completely automatic, so you don't need to worry about casting.
Archmage:
Flamestrike damage full damage interval down from 1.5 to 1
Flamestrike is a bit of a difficult spell right now to figure out. There are a lot of numbers and an entire equation to its damage. Hopefully decreasing the number that I did will manage what I want.
The spell simply does too much damage.
Farms can no longer upgrade into Plantations
Farms are a bit bigger visually, but this will have no impact on gameplay.
Mortal default income per 30 is 30g. (The equation specifically is 30+(farms*1))
I do this for a few reasons.
1. Mortals need a general buff to fund an actual army.
2. Mortal income is hard to come by, and they are practically crippled by it unless they are lucky enough to be given 10 minutes of free time.
3. Farm income, to me, should supplement your income. Where you have a choice between 'okay, do i stick with the default and get more elites? Or do I buff my income a bit more and have less elites?" But to spend half of your food supply JUST to get your income to the most basic level necessary is by definition: crippling.
4. This is the first step toward me redoing how Mortals start the game. There will be a few more steps before I can get it where I want, and allow people to choose races and allow me to give more racial options.
Priest and Shaman have a lot removed, but the Dimensional Traveler has been added to both Orcs and Humans:
1. Astral Walk removed from Priest and Shaman
2. Teleport removed from Priest and Shaman
3. Portal construction removed from Priest and Shaman
4. All of that has been put into the new unit: The Dimensional Traveler
5. The dimensional traveler can be built at any townhall/greathall variant.
The reason for this is, again, identity, but also more specifically a seperation of roles. The role of a priest is part healer, part cleanser, and part 'dimensional traveler'. Shaman is the exact same. I want both the Priest and Shaman to have the identities of a priest and a shaman, not of a teleporter. So I will be giving them a new set of spells in the future, and they will no longer be bound to the identity of mobility. Instead I have made the dimensional traveler whose identity is 100% to take up that identity for them.