Since you limited the units we can train in Chapter 8, does that mean that now that Flammedus is AI controlled, that he'll only train centaur units?

 

The Flammedus AI is only training Centaur units, yes, but in addition to the Marauder, Impaler
and Spiritcaller he has access to Khans as his elite cavalry.

 

Version 1.24 released!
Special thanks to my lad @Arowanna for creating a new, absolutely fantastic skin for Sir Praxeus!

Changelog

General:
- New model & icon for Sir Praxeus "The Holy Bastion" Braelon

 

You've said before that you want to rework the First Orc Book. Is that still a plan?

 

I still have plans to improve parts of the First Books, yes.

 

Very glad to see the nerf to the dragons(especially sinc,unlike the human book,the orcs do not have the restriction of training more than 2 dragons)
Regarding my statment on Shieldbearers...I will have to further look into it (how the brutes fair with the new shieldbearers) although i still think this wasen't a nerf this was more of a butchering but at least this gives us a broader avenue of choices regarding our army compositions(even tho i think the players will simply opt to go mass gladiators)
Was shieldbearer OP?If they were another project absolutely yes,in arkain where we have to constantly deal with three+ armies an absurd number of paladins(or paladins in disguies,yes shar those Knight heros should be renamed to Paladins with different flavors) they aren't entirely op,maybe a more harsher hit to their damage,attack rate and cost would be better than messing with their innate tankiness,remember they are supposed to be immovable objects basically a brute on Elite's armour...I am open to further discussion regarding to this topic,i will need to look this further tho.

 

Humans lost that limitation in one of the recent updates, that is why I have increased the
food cost of Black Dragons for them.

The Shieldbearers simply were overperforming for their cost.
High armor values combined with 1500 hit points, anability that reduces all piering damage to 65%
and even an ability decreasing all incoming damage by 12 per hit was too much.
The new update does not take away their tankiness, yes they lost almost 25% hp but they still have
tons of armor and the two aforementioned abilities. Also keep in mind that they now take less
of your food, 5 instead of 6, meaning that they are still a viable option.

The problem with them was that they were so powerful that it was almost a restriction of sorts
when player wanted to try new units as their elite melee instead of Shieldbearers, simply due
to the fact that Shieldbearers were so good.
They are still a great unit, they are just less over the top than they used to be and more on par
with the Clan Brutes - which is another reason for the change. Before this update Shieldbearers
simply outmatched Clan Brutes easily.

 

Shar let's be honest how many players opted to use shieldbearers once we got access to the Dragons?Exactly not that many,you cutting their HP by 25% makes them way more weaker to chaos damage which they already struggled with,I am pretty sure I am not the only one remembering how hard was to keep them alive without at least three which doctors during the chapter where we had to save Gnoll king...I don't know what's in store for the third book of Orcs but i would take a guess and say DEMONS would still be around and they do chaos damage.

Imo what made Shieldbearers so strong was the fact they were perfect at tanking and dishing out damage...Why not just take their damage away then they become just meatshields(which is their role) then this would force us the player to opt for gladiators and ogres(or even impalers) to fulfill that role.

Did they deserve a nerf?Yes i just think you should have targeted other aspects of what made them so great as units...Dont take away what there supposed to be,take away what they weren't supposed to be.The food cost decrease just means that we will get another 2 or 3 shieldbearers(I usually went with 12 and the rest was filled with supporting spellcasters and siege) yes more units to fight and tank but they die faster and the witchdoctor healing is not as effective.

My two cents.

 

I think this last update was a very good one, Shieldbearers were objectively too good and it really didn't matter in what way they were toned back. They still have the best survivability of all the tanks given their passive upgrades. The attacks in 11 and 12 did feel lighter also, so that helped and encouraged different unit play. I'm tempted to replay the earlier missions for fun now.

Anyways, wall of text feedback incoming. Now that maps 4, 6, 8, and 10 have all lost their meme-worthy ridiculousness, it seems it's onto Ch13. Mass dragons is very clearly the most boring way to play and there is basically no way around it when you have three, four, sometimes FIVE, SIX (I AM NOT EXAGGERATING) attack waves consecutively attacking/clumping into one another with resurrection popping once or twice too, while individual Redfist footman heroes are better than all of the players heroes combined. I had even already destroyed the closest top and bottom Daric bases.

Trying any ground comp offensively probably CAN work, don't get me wrong, but you simply cannot have enough heroes and units where they need to be to promptly defend also without the waves then stacking on each other. So, you have to use dragons and leave anything else at home. (I got rolled anyway after five, maybe six consecutive attacks...)

Ch12 worked similarly, but it felt purposeful given the layout and more interesting because you had to defend a big circle while sniping with dragons - the waves didn't really stack up.

I don't want this map nerfed into the ground, but jfc did anyone else actually play this without cheats to give constructive feedback? I know you all used mass dragons or cheated, don't lie to me (let's be straight, I'm confident MOST folks are using cheats when playing any of these campaigns, therefore not giving good testing feedback).

There is a limit to how overbearing attack waves can get (assuming they're all running at you down a central lane like this) and, when that limit is hit, the player will always make flyers to snipe structures for a lengthy 90-120 min, or simply give up when it comes down to bad luck attack timings. There is a point where it peaks and adding enemies and making those enemy units have crazy stats begins to detract from the maps more than anything else.

My opinion on possible changes/things to think about. Implementing all would be overboard:

1. An extra 10-15 seconds spacing between the scripted waves of each faction relative to the others would make a very noticeable difference. AFAIK this time has already been increased with the last update, but am not sure if it affected every map or not. It's possible the recent changes inadvertantly caused bad luck wave buildup for me even though you increased the timings.
2. As far as I can tell, there are 8 enemy factions (3 Redfist, 3 Daric, 2 Dwarves) versus the player; I really can't count the two allies, they stopped doing much at all once the front merc bases were gone. Are 8 factions/distinct attack waves really necessary? I think the crux of it is the stacking attack waves. Fewer enemies but with larger volume attacks retains a similar challenge but reduces the risk of crazy consecutive wave buildup.
   
3. Reduce the volume of units in their separate attacks. I took a look at my video from Last Stand of the Golden Guard for comparison and the number of units per attack was much lower and my heroes were much stronger. The individual enemy units were also much less powerful, specifically the survivability of Redfist stuff verges on comical, hence attack waves stacking up. I had even destroyed two enemy bases, but still was overwhelmed.
4. Allow some function to call for help from your allied defensive forces.
5. Provide a safe, second gold mine.

Arkain has a reputation of being a wild, grindy ride; I've enjoyed much of it along the way, but - let me stress - every big milestone map does not need to outdo the absurdity of every one that preceded it. SOB has not been comparable in challenge to SHB for me and is significantly harder, which I did not think could even be possible, haha. Mind you, I don't want this feedback to result in too many difficulty nerfs or SUB to end up being way easier, but there has been a running theme of escalating, overbearing craziness throughout SOB and I'm glad my and others' feedback has been helpful to apply recent patches.

 

Does Easy Mode count as cheating? Because it is possible to not use mass Dragons then, and allies can be of use beyond the mercs, but then again, it is against enemies with 30% less HP and no base rebuilds (and being lucky with the wave stacking not happening too much)... Okay, I guess it is cheating.

...

Okay, I frequently use iseedeadpeople, but that's far more me wanting to see the whole map because I enjoy this than anything else (you wouldn't believe the number of time I got surprised by attack waves for someone theoretically able to see them all).

Still, it is all nice feedback, Jay. I wonder what you will think of the last two missions... They could feel familiar somehow...

 

I had hoped the Second Orc Book would not give me as much headache as the First.
I mean, the reasons are different but it is always the Orcs.

Anyway, I have analyzed the chapter and its issues once again:
There is a total of 9 enemy AIs with bases that actively send forces. Out of these 9, 4 are
assigned to attack the allies of the player rather than the player himself.
That means that theoretically, only 5 AIs attack the player directly.
(as comparison: In Chapter Eleven A of the Second Human Book, it was 5 as well)
There are a few problems that appear in reality that go unnoticed on paper and for some reason
seemingly have not been as severe in the last version of the campaign though the AI changes
should not have affected this.

a) The gold mines: The secondary gold mines are located in a way that they pretty much
lie exactly en route of the forces that attack your allies, meaning that there is no way around you
being the one under attack in the end.
b) The AI pathing: The location of the player base makes it very tempting for the enemy AIs to
walk through it rather than go around it to attack your allies, meaning that you once again get
an attack that was not meant to target you. Commander Thire, for example, keeps walking through
the player base simply because it seems to him that it is a few meters less than the other way!
c) The Rage of the Redfist: The Redfist not only has the most powerful units in the entire human
arsenal (keep in mind that this mission is using elite versions of their ordinary units), they are also
sending MASSIVE amounts of soldiers into battle. Their allies are not weak either, but I think we
all can agree that the Redfist is the real nightmare to do battle against - as it is supposed to be.
d) Attack timers: As only 5 enemy AIs are supposed to attack the player directly, the other 4 are
not part of the pattern I usually use for AI attacks. Therefore they can stack with the other attacks
since they have different targets.​

I am currently working on a solution, planning to:

1. (Re)move the connection between the player and his allies to stop enemies trying to walk through your base
   
2. Adjust the activation of the AIs so that the bases in the back remain passive until you made a certain amount of progress
3. Add a secure goldmine as suggested by @Jayborino
   
4. Adjustments for the individual attacks & their timers (enemies & allies alike)

I need to see if these changes have the desired effect or not & continue testing.
It will take some time but I want my campaigns to be in the best shape possible and it was a mistake to
release the Second Orc Book as fast as I did. That will not be the case with the Second Undead Book.

This is something that I need a bit more information on, for me the allies worked perfectly fine even
after the front merc bases were gone.
Do you mean that they stopped attacking or that their attacks were ineffective?

Little fyi, not judging you or anything, just saying that the AI in chapters like Twelve or the
secret chapter REALLY does not like iseedeadpeople and may screw up because of it.

 

Thank you for clarifying, this makes a big difference to know those waves are meant for the allied bases, please disregard the last paragraph in my initial feedback in that case. Looking forward to trying an updated version!

 

Version 1.25 released!

Changelog

General:
- Fixed the Batrider model for newer game versions

Chapter Thirteen:
- Increased the gold in the inital goldmine
- Added a second goldmine to the player base
- Tweaked AI attacks
- Seperated the bases of the player and his allies by trees to avoid the AI walking through the player to attack the allies
- Increased the lumber per tree from 50 to 300
- The Redfist Elite, a faction of the Bloodstone Dwarves & the Redfist (not the Redfist Vanguard) remain passive until certain conditions are met
- Tweaked the target change for the allied AI

Chapter Fourteen:
- Tweaked AI attacks

EDIT:
The Batrider model has been fixed for newer versions.

 

My allies in chapter 13 kept sending attack waves even after I finished off the two outlying merc bases,they sometime seemed to be disoriented tho,like sending a bunch of units ahead while the hero the spellcasters and ranged were lagging behind I noticed this happening to the northern base(The one whith Zarimak),while the southern one seemed to do just fine don't know if jay was refering to this occurrence.


I found it easier to remove the first line of redfist bases then turn into the outlying merc bases i did not have that much issue with my gold mines being exposed to attacks.

 

Version 1.26 released!

Changelog

General:
- Final (hopefully) fix of the Batrider model for newer versions of the game
- Several AI tweaks

 

Hello. I try to play this campaign but not can. Exception: 0xC0000005 (ACCESS_VIOLATION) at 0023:651ABAC0

The instruction at '0x651ABAC0' referenced memory at '0x651ABAC0'.
The memory could not be 'written'.

I try to put in window mode, but nothing.. I have Windows 10. Help me please

 

Ok.. I download Warcraft III 1.31 but the folder "Campaigns" doesn't exist.. and I created one of name Campagins and still doesn't work

 

It's in Documents

 

i have a question about forest troll aka old allies of the orcs. After they were massacred by demons, their race was extinct, right?