Techtree Contest #19 - Tyrande

[Galendor an'Kreil]

Now that's unexpected. Gotta play it!

 

[FlameofChange]

Oh come on.
Why almost every faction needing 90% handicap forget to put it back to 100% at game start ?
Anyway. Here's a non exhaustive review of mine. TL;DR Quite polished on both paper and practice, but globally overpowered.

Spoiler: Legend

From best to worse

VS] When Vinz and Spellbound makes something together on Warcraft 3

S] Great, elegant, extra thicc, easily hooks the mind

A] Good. Nothing much to say except nitpick

B] Genuinely OK, but can be better in many ways

C] Average. Not bad, not good. C- would be "meh"

D] Flawed, or insignificant

E] Unstable, badly made, or just broken

F] Fatal error, ruins the rest

Spoiler: Tier List

Aesthetics VS- How well the graphics blends with Warcraft 3 while being elegant This faction is lovely and vibrant while not reinventing the wheel. I can lament some small details which sadly removes a bit of the effect, but this is very solid, to a point of being better than the 4 base factions. This effort is even done in the tiny VFX here and there, as almost all stuff are custom made for the occasion. I was tempted to just put VS but more I look at it more I see those nitpicks, however I guess it's a matter of juicing up some animations and fill the small gaps. Don't get me wrong, achieving this level is already much more I bargained for in a contest.

Fluff A The epicness, spice, philosophy and background of the faction In most case I would not put a notation, nor make it outside of average when dealing with existing lore. But the way you depicted Tyrande -with some correct liberties- immediately immerses the player into the theme. The unspoken details in the lore brings interest into the faction and its intricacies. The limits of the subject weren't hindering you. On the other elvish hand that's still in the Warcraft 3 ballpark while the strategical implication might break the fluff (see later). Good but nothing extravagant.

Feel & juice S (How fun is it to play the faction, how well the faction gives you positive feedback Even outside yourself doing custom faction, your contribution to the community is felt through your custom VFX on countless maps already. This one doesn't make any exception. While not a cascade of awesomeness, the right stuff comes at the right moment. Unfortunately you could have pushed further some VFX, and when too many effects piles up they blend together to the point of making a too smooth visual soup. Well, that's me "squirming my ass to shit straight" like I say in french, could be my own bias.

Strategy and tactic A- How the mechanics blends together, giving the faction its unique approach On paper, this is very solid, enough to impress me by a good margin. On practice I have several concerns. Not like they break the game, but maybe these were the point you missed due to the lack of testing against seasoned melee players. They should however be easily fix in balance (see later). ☼ Your workers not being able to do something else in the early-mid game than gathering gold and build makes them awkward to use. But that's not the only concern : having them idle doesn't waste any gathering since you never use the 5 gathering gold. ☼ Lumber gathering not costing food liberates too much space for army, putting Tyrande faction at a strategical advantage right of the bat ☼ The altar regenerating mana just calls for spamming them in your base, which makes another awkward strategical position for your faction and breaks the immersion a bit ☼ Saplings to defend the base is just free XP for raiding heroes

Balance D- How its strengths leave space to the rest, does it blends gameplay-wise together with the other 4 races The worst part by far of your faction. We can say the base units are too cheap for their value, but the upgrades makes them too superior to the other faction equivalent roles. I'm wondering why you left so many obvious balance errors in your thought process, and I'm not talking about polishing. ☼ You get a farm with +2 free food, +5 free food at night, and gain through an upgrade a damage reduction bonus (which doesn't need the building to be finished btw). I don't say it is broken, but makes your faction too easy to use. You get here a lot of bonuses without any drawbacks. This is how I would balance it ►► Provided food reduced from 8+5 to 6+3 ►► Cost increased from 80 20 35 to 95 35 40 ►► Armor reduced from 5 to 3 ►► Make the aura active only after the building is built ►► Aura AoE reduced from 700 to 500 ►► Aura effect increased from 15 to 75% for peon (all factions) and saplings ☼ The Woodland shrine prints lumber to oblivion with no drawbacks. Cheap, and can also print upgrades. I can't pinpoint the exact lumber generation, but it is overboard. Get 4-5 of these early on and you print lumber for free without food cost. Another problem is raiding your base is very unrewarding for the enemy, since your shrine is harder to kill than isolated peons, and also don't give XP loot when destroyed. There's several ways to fix this, but this is how I would do it. The objective is to make it comparable to a warmill (because this is a warmill with extra steps). ►► Cost increased from 180 45 to 220 60 ►► Can deposit lumber ►► Level increased from 0 to 4 ►► First solution >>> Generates 0.7 lumber per second per loaded worker on average >>> Can load up to one worker per two nearby trees, max 5 workers ►► Second solution >>> Make it cost 6 food ☼ I won't say the altar being able to print mana is broken too, but that's again too much reward. To fix this I would make the cooldown and effect global, so it no longer stack. I mean when it is cast by one of them, all the other does the same but doesn't stack. You may compensate a bit by increasing slightly the mana (or reduce cooldown) depending on the current player tier. ☼ Lunar vigil is the strongest of the core upgrades. +6 at night is both daunting and leans even more towards night combat. It makes 10-20% more damage passively. I would replace it by a +10% attack and spell damage, capped at +6 for example. ☼ Sanctuary is also quite strong just with the free -8 received damage. Like for the lunar vigil I would make it % based with a cap (or the reverse). ☼ The forager is a bit too cost effective for its price, this is mostly due to its base 2 armor, the healing and the spamable later on dispel. I don't think a forager doomstack can do something great, which is not a problem, but the support it grants compared to the risks participates in the global high power of your faction. When upgraded it gains 1.6 mana/s ! Remember to make the casters comparable to others ! ►► Cost increased from 150 20 to 160 30 ►► Level reduced from 3 to 2 ►► Mana regen reduced from 0.8 to 0.72 ►► Base HP reduced from 300 to 290 ►► Armor reduced from 2 to 0 ►► Collision size reduced from 32 to 31 ►► Weed out >>> Bonus HP reduced from 50 to 40 >>> Bonus mana regen reduced from 0.8 to 0.325 >>> Cost adjusted from 75 100 35 to 50 100 60 ☼ The Nightblade... one of the most important early balance problem. Too high punch, scales too well, and has access to many support abilities. She outmatches all T1 units, and even if they tend to die of death you have so much value in the first minutes of the game. Yeah they are a bit expensive, but they are worth every penny. They also run as fast as knights. It makes early game too smooth. Unless you face them with AoE spells you can't match them in raw stats and passive abilities. In the late game they just print damage with Nightfall. ►► Cost Reduced from 235 60 to 205 40 ►► Armor reduced from 3 to 1 ►► HP Increased from 360 to 405 ►► Damage reduced from 23+1D4 to 16+1D3 ►► Movement speed reduced from 320 to 270 ►► Nightfall >>> AoE damage changed from 24/36/48 (fix) to 50/55/60% of the damage dealt by the attack >>> The AoE damage no longer stack with the attack damage ►► Elude >>> Bonus speed increased from 20% to 40% >>> Evading melee attacks has a cooldown of 4 seconds (ranged 8) >>> Can also soak 75% of spell damage, capped at 150 total reduction ►► Shadowstep >>> Research time increased from 35 to 45 >>> Bonus HP reduced from 120 to 45 ☼ The Lamplighter may be too disruptive when spammed. Its normal attack may make it a tad too threatening against workers and ranged units for its price. ☼ I would reduce the building armor to compensate the numerous interlayed defense systems. You call. ☼ Armor could be split between night elves and beasts too. ☼ Saplings are just free XP to enemy heroes. You might make them level 0. ☼ Due to coping-pasting the same tech, the 35 second research time is spread everywhere, making teching too easy. I would rebalance each one of them with 45-60s durations ; with some exception coming through further tests ☼ I think i'll pass for the other units for this review, they feel somewhat a bit underwhelming. However I have yet to test doomstacks of them.

Content B+ Does the faction feels complete compared to its intent and the other races The only two main drawbacks is the lack of 3 minimal heroes, and the shop could be a bit more expanded. The rest is very pleasant, rich and well placed. Balancing the units and core features would also make the other units more usefull, since you can do so much with Tyrande, 2 merc heroes and base units. Fix all of that and it will reach S+ no sweat.

Handling & ergonomics A- Does this faction have the proper data shown, how easy is it to understand There were efforts to make tooltips expanded and VFX clear. However there's some faults here and there. ☼ Astral reconning had no tooltip (could be 2.0.2 bug) ☼ We don't know how much the wood gathering gives ; some kind of average would be very welcomed ☼ The macro is too easy due to the cheap supply and lumber gathering ☼ Spawning sapplings could benefit from being automatic, cast when a nearby friendly unit or building is attacked ☼ The damage floating text for Arborist might be a bit confusing with critical hit. I would replace it with just a VFX. If you really want to keep it, change its color at least. ☼ The Skyhunter tooltip indicate she only attacks ground, but actually only attacks air.

Triggers, code, overall polishing A Is the map correctly coded, no leaks, have efficient algorithm, are details taken care of The map has a good level of polishing, especially in code, but from a gameplay perspective it could have been better mostly due to balance. ☼ Don't forget to put the handicap back to 100% !!! ☼ Since you replace the tree of life with a town hall equivalent, it makes the Haven too close to the goldmine, making gold gathering awkward. To fix this simply create a Haven at the player starting point instead. ☼ A specific color code for your faction in tooltips would be a plus ☼ The upgrades in the Woodland shrine could be better sorted ☼ You don't need the active button path, nor the war3mapImported ☼ Wildberry could gain a more explicit visual on target and healing. ☼ The Skyhunter being in the 2 food ballpark makes thing a bit incoherent. I would make her more powerful, more expensive and having more impact with her ability. 3 food would be a good compromise, but 4 is fine too, so it it closer to a hippogryph rider. It would also make less unit to control and leave more breathing room to the army selection. ☼ The Lamplighter may benefit from altered stats from the Bat rider. ☼ Tyrande on a ground howl is strange, but needed for balance reasons. Another mount would be welcomed. ☼ The Arborist attack animation lacks punch and has the wrong animation projectile launch (the arrow gets fired from her left). It should also feel more magical & epic due to the rather damage dealing role of the unit. ☼ Don't forget to verify the following : ►► Damage point/backswing ►► Projectile launch/impact ►► Same repair cost as the base cost, even for non repairable units ►► Armor type (sound) ; for example some of your buildings sound like stone but are wood.

Contest rules A+ Only relevant in a Tech tree contest The judges may inflate their notation due to the visual quality and completeness of the gameplay, but also because the faction is much too rewarding. I won't repeat what I have said in content and polishing. Due to the power creep it may artificially reach the podium.

Overall tier B The balance destroyed a lot of this tier, the rest barely raises it up. It's a good faction but needed many more tests and especially from melee players. It is not very far from being awesome tho. By just applying my suggestion it will reach A+ or even S, but has the potential to reach VB ! Its identity and main strategy is there at least, and genuinely deserves getting worked further.

Personal taste A+ No impact on the rest of the notation, just by curiosity The pill barely got swallowed about the balance. A shame since the rest brings your craftmanship to a good light. I don't say it in a bad way. You are one of the best factioneer of the community, and this map shows perfectly your strengths and weaknesses in terms of mapping. Rework those damn tree rats, I know you like tall ferocious purple skinned mommies to keep you company. Don't let that bias take in (got the same problem) !

 

[Ustanak]

So many cool looking models

 

[GhostThruster]

Gave Tyrande a couple of playthroughs, and to summarize my thoughts: very beautiful, as to be expected . Some interesting ideas, but their implementation especially as it pertains to balance is lacking. Fun and thematic.

Good:

• Of course, the effects are gorgeous The unit models are perfect. Some of the buildings are too perfect, for SD and classic HD at least.
• Abilities could be a bit too left-field for me, but there were some which I think hit the sweet spot of novel, fun and intuitive. My prime example would be Takedown; simple in concept, makes sense for the unit, and even though it's essentially a reverse-Web, I've never seen before!
• There are some brave ideas at play, for example Elven Shelters granting bonus Food at night.
• Your role coverage is quite spot on, with adequate ranged, melee, air, anti-air, siege, anti-caster and detection/invisibility capabilities.
  • Credit for some novel unit ideas as well, such as a Mooncake-throwing wagon and an anti-heavy unit specialist.
  • The only capability you could use more of is stuns / disables
• This faction certainly feels like a force that Tyrande could lead, and the tying of night mechanics is great.
  • It doesn't fully feel like a Tyrande faction, for two main reasons: (1) I'd envision much more Sentinel involvement rather than wild beasts and furbolgs (2) I don't feel the mechanics necessarily tie into her character well, though that might be her being sort of a generic blank slate good guy than your lack of trying.
  • I do miss Shadowmeld as a racial trait; perhaps there was room to explore an enhanced version of that.

Lacking:

• There are some issues with implementation that Flame has already mentioned, which are almost definitely due to lack of time rather than deliberate design choices. I can't really fault you for that... except to manage time better
• As Flame also mentioned, this faction is pretty imba I steamrolled over an Insane AI even noting the 90% HP bug. The main source of brokeness is their economy. Because Woodland Shrines don't cost Food, you get a lot more free population to build army.
• I found the array of passive abilities to be overwhelming for several reasons:
  • Overall, there's a LOT of them, and unlike active abilities which force engagement via active use, a lot of these just blend in the background.
  • Sometimes, their effects felt a bit complex for the amount of depth they added. For example, Nightfall dealing AoE damage to targets with <18% HP. The 18% is esoteric, but can chalk it up to balance. The effect itself seems like Pulverize with extra steps; maybe in intent you want to encourage focus fire, but in practice a squishy melee unit like the Nightblade will rarely be micro-ed to specifically hit low-HP units with the benefit of doing slightly more AoE damage.
  • I found that the array of passives also meant that a late-game army sorta became a right-click deathball. For me, part of the fun is spamming cool spells, and a faction is less engaging if they auto-win battles for me.
• Tyrande's ultimate was a bit of a letdown. The rest of her kit is great, but her ult feels underwhelming. IMO it needs much higher impact

Nitpicks:

• I think you overall did a good job of making units distinct, but the buildings felt like they could be done better. For example, the names Hinterland Lodge, Den of the Wilds, Woodland Shrine and Mystic Garden are almost all interchangeable with each other. Compare that to the Orc techtree, for example: it's clear Barracks are for martial units, Beastiaries are for beasts, Spirit Lodges are for spiritual units, and Tauren Totems are beef factories.

Overall, some cool units and great ideas whose implementation probably needs more time and playtesting to reach their full potential, wrapped up in a beautiful exterior!

 

[Vinz]

Thank you very much for taking the time to review, you two - it's deeply appreciated!
I agree with a lot of the critique and the suggested tweaks.

Spoiler: FlameofChange

VS] When Vinz and Spellbound makes something together on Warcraft 3

I concur that things generally went better when Vinz had nothing to do with the mechanics

☼ The Woodland shrine prints lumber to oblivion with no drawbacks. Cheap, and can also print upgrades. I can't pinpoint the exact lumber generation, but it is overboard. Get 4-5 of these early on and you print lumber for free without food cost. Another problem is raiding your base is very unrewarding for the enemy, since your shrine is harder to kill than isolated peons, and also don't give XP loot when destroyed. There's several ways to fix this, but this is how I would do it. The objective is to make it comparable to a warmill (because this is a warmill with extra steps).

I compared Woodland Shrines to Wisps
Wisps gather 5 lumber every 7 seconds. The gold cost of this structure is equivalent to three Wisps'.
Three wisps can generate 15 lumber over 7 seconds, or a little over 2 lumber per second.
Woodland Shrines generate 3 lumber per second, to make up for the fact that they cannot be moved, making them less adaptable than wisps.
Looking back, I do agree that they need food cost though, like through the worker loading mechanic you mentioned.

The Nightblade... one of the most important early balance problem. Too high punch, scales too well, and has access to many support abilities. She outmatches all T1 units, and even if they tend to die of death you have so much value in the first minutes of the game. Yeah they are a bit expensive, but they are worth every penny. They also run as fast as knights. It makes early game too smooth. Unless you face them with AoE spells you can't match them in raw stats and passive abilities. In the late game they just print damage with Nightfall.

Nightblades run a bit slower than Knights, unless you're also counting the brief movement bonus from Shadowstep?
My main point of reference is the Grunt. Nightblades have half the health of Grunts (700 vs 360), but not double their base DPS (12.18 vs 20.8). This looks even better for Grunts later on (16.67 vs 26.4).
The rest of the Nightblades' power budget went into Nightfall. Their heavy armor and low health also makes them extremely vulnerable to magic burst.

Spoiler: GhostThruster

My prime example would be Takedown; simple in concept, makes sense for the unit, and even though it's essentially a reverse-Web, I've never seen before!

@matyko is the GOAT for that idea.

I found the array of passive abilities to be overwhelming for several reasons:

• Overall, there's a LOT of them, and unlike active abilities which force engagement via active use, a lot of these just blend in the background.

I made them passive to keep them out of the way of the gameplay, but I can see how the dearth of actives made the units a little less engaging. I wish I had considered this perspective.

Tyrande's ultimate was a bit of a letdown. The rest of her kit is great, but her ult feels underwhelming. IMO it needs much higher impact

Didn't like what I settled for either; didn't have enough mental energy to see my super owl concept come to fruition.

I think you overall did a good job of making units distinct, but the buildings felt like they could be done better. For example, the names Hinterland Lodge, Den of the Wilds, Woodland Shrine and Mystic Garden are almost all interchangeable with each other. Compare that to the Orc techtree, for example: it's clear Barracks are for martial units, Beastiaries are for beasts, Spirit Lodges are for spiritual units, and Tauren Totems are beef factories.

Fair point, they could use more identity

The Woodland Shrine mechanic was implemented on the very last day - not that it excuses the half-baked thought process behind it.
I also failed to balance the abundance of passives.

I might look into improving the faction after the contest, although I'm not promising more than number adjustments.
It might be my last techtree too... committing to all this work doesn't vibe with me, at least not the way it used to.

P.S. Thank you, @GhostThruster - your early feedback and point of view was instrumental in allowing this to become a full faction and in helping me fill out the roles, even if I didn't get very far in that regard.

 

[FlameofChange]

My main point of reference is the Grunt. Nightblades have half the health of Grunts (700 vs 360), but not double their base DPS (12.18 vs 20.8). This looks even better for Grunts later on (16.67 vs 26.4).

Beware of this kind of process. It's not because you compensate a stat with another it keeps the balance. Here the Nightblades are too frail against AoE spells & crowd control, making factions without it in a bad matchup. Furthermore the stacking passives makes her too versatile. Your faction has a lot of healing sources early on, making her frail side less of a problem. Also having a too high DPS straight from Tier 1 gives a sensible boost in creep farming and rewards peon hunting too much. As a Tier 2 unit that might be fine, but that would completely shift the overall design of the faction in a bad way.

 

[The Nightmare Book]

Note: My recording and impression may be outdated due to playing on the earliest version possible.
OVERALL Tyrande felt like a nice custom race where you don't have any problem with resource management, especially cool lumber harvest. Visuals, @Vinz, you are rocking with them. Any chance to release some models to the public? I think that I've saw something that still is not released on HIVE, but I may be wrong.

In terms of BALANCE, I join to @FlameofChange's review, althought I want to say that Tyrande's AOE [E] spell is strong enough and nearly nullifies my desires to go to the fountain. I played in FFA against 3 more normal AIs, but I didn't have any issues.

In conclusion, I liked Tyrande. I liked that flying seed transport - it reminded me of unusual transport from Ardenweld in WoW Shadowlands.
Andu Falah-dor!

 

[Vinz]

Thanks for playing!

Any chance to release some models to the public? I think that I've saw something that still is not released on HIVE, but I may be wrong.

A bunch of assets were indeed made for the faction, and I do plan to release them at some point.

 

[Villagerino]

You guys put so much thought and effort into this amount of content, just crazy I'm not really into alternative melee yet and I don't understand much about it, but I couldn't pass it up, lol. The hero-centric idea of the contest also lured me. Watching the YT by The Nightmare Book! Everything is so cool, shiny, fluffy and very Vinz style

 

[Vinz]

Spoiler: 0.79

19.12.25 | 0.79 - Special thanks to FlameofChange and GhostThruster!
 ● GENERAL
  - Handicap now properly reverts to 100% at game start
  - Various tooltip fixes
  - Various repair cost fixes
  - Researched times increased according to tier

 ● FORAGER
  - armor reduced from 2 to 0
  - Wildberry Seed heal reduced from 40 to 35
  - mana regen after Weed Out research reduced from 1,6 to 0,8

 ● NIGHTBLADE
  - attack cooldown increased from 1.25 to 1.35
  - Nightfall damage reduced from 24/36/48 to 20/30/40
  - Elude cooldown increased from 8s to 10s
  - Shadowstep health upgrade reduced from 120 to 75

 ● LAMPLIGHTER
  - base damage reduced by 2

 ● SKYHUNTER
  - food cost increased from 2 to 3
  - resource costs increased from 165 | 40 to 195 | 75
  - attack cooldown reduced from 1.5 to 1.2
  - base damage increased from 58 to 64
  - movement increased from 360 to 380
  - armor increased from 0 to 3

 ● TIMBERLING
  - Timber Hearth cooldown increased from 9s to 12s

 ● ELYSIAN ARK
  - Bugfix: Mooncakes no longer enumerates max health units
  - Preparation mana regen per cargo reduced from 2 to 1.5
  - Mooncakes heal reduced from 80 to 64
  - Mooncakes mana cost reduced from 10 to 8
  - Magic Mushrooms now properly requires its upgrade

 ● ARBORIST
  - Natural Order reworked: now an active that causes the Arborist to take bonus damage during it

 ● TYRANDE
  - Moonfire on-hit attack rate bonus reduced from 25 / 40 / 55% to 25 / 35 / 45%
  - Lunar Blessing regen reduced from 16/24/32 to 14/22/30
  - Lunar Blessing now has an overhead effect
  - Goddess' Gale now interrupts channeling and briefly slows enemies

 ● HAVEN / SANCTUARY
  - Now created at proper starting hall distance
  - Bugfix: Sanctuary resource costs restored
  - Silent Night is now researched here instead of at the Woodland Shrine

 ● WOODLAND SHRINE
  - food cost increased from 0 to 1
  - lumber generation increased from 6 to 7
  - base lumber interval increased from 2s to 5s
  - can now load up to three Artisans to reduce lumber interval by 1s each

 ● ELVEN SHELTER
  - resource cost increased from 80 | 20 to 100 | 30
  - build time increased from 35 to 40
  - health increased from 500 to 600
  - Silent Night reworked: damage reduction aura -> now periodically silences nearby enemies when attacked

 ● RANGER'S POST
  - Blazing Shot is now enabled for all Ranger's Posts built before the research

 ● ANCIENT OF THE MOON
  - Lunar Vigil bonus nighttime damage reduced from +6 to +4
  - Sanctuary damage taken reduction for Woodland units reduced from -8 to -5
  - Eternity's Touch heal per second reduced from 40 to 30

 ● ANCIENT'S NEST
  - Fixed missing particle VFX

 ● MOONLIT VAULT
  - T1 Scroll of Regeneration: removed
  - New T1 Potion of Twilight: when the target is not moving, it heals over time and additionally enters stealth at night
  - T3 Scroll of Shadows now properly requires Ancient of the Moon
  - T3 Orb of Night's volley chance corrected, & can now damage allies

 

[SarielLuxe]

 

[deepstrasz]

Approved based on Techtree Contest #19 - Results