Approved
- Joined
- Feb 8, 2015
- Messages
- 815
Disclaimer : this criticism takes in account the fact that the map is in a state where it must be bruised before being stable. I could be harsh but I can see potential here. I also won't talk about the lore since I'm way more sensible to game design. Everything I say will become irrelevant once changes are made, or if you take an other path someway.
TL;DR : Elegantly OP, faction that wants to be too much at the same time.
General feeling
Ahoy, I did 3 solo games against AI. On paper there's a lot of interesting stuff but in practice it's not relevant. Your faction is meant to have a power spike in late game, but what power spike ? The faction is so quickly strong you can even stomp Insane computers with upgraded T1 units. Every details blends well... too well... way too well. The Blade wreck havoc when supported with the support hero. It becomes unstoppable in early game. Its high stats and flame aura crisps blobs of low food units, even upgraded. Also being able to build everything at the same time, instantly have wood and gold income, plus no supply cost from gatherers makes early game very smooth, in a sense of too smooth, like a 2D waifu. I was expecting a tough early game due to everything being expensive (which is the case) but having strong economic assets largely compensates the offset. Even when the AI get tier 3 units, you also have T3-ish since they are available in T1.
In general, my point is your faction wanted to have many bonuses and strategies at the same time. It would be more interesting -gameplay wise- to concentrate on one strategy (which, on paper, are all independently and genuinely elegant). All of it blend too well thus I can understand your reluctance on nerfing everything. Consequently keeping the same strategy and balancing it will create a cursed concept : a frail balance between strength and identity.
Build system & economy
No need of workers, and the gatherers doesn't use food. Range is limited by your main building and farms. Resources production doesn't cost resource beside the building. Workers are invulnerable but you must micro a little your eco so you won't waste time. They instantly get 5 wood before returning to depot. Supply nodes doesn't drop wood but can spawn a single worker. No repair beside sacrificing nodes. That's a lot of advantages for too few drawbacks, however it's clever and coherent on itself. To keep this spirit while balancing it, I would :
☼ Either make the workers immune to spells OR being ethereal OR having an auto invulnerability for X seconds when attacked (could be an upgrade and/or upgraded).
☼ Make workers vulnerable when out of range of supply until back in the base.
☼ Make the spawn periodic (4-10s) when casted, so the spike is not too strong and the decay not too harsh. In other words when casted it will spawn one by one the workers instead of a blob.
☼ Lumber gatherers will focus the rally point if it's on a tree.
☼ Either make each main buildings cost food (4-8) to compensate the worker spawn OR make the ability cost food (3-5) until the burst is gone.
☼ Increase building time by 20 to 50%.
☼ Each building in construction will cost 1-4 food until it's done depending on the type, except core elements like the T1 main and supply to avoid a paradox.
☼ Any destroyed spawner will also destroy its workers.
☼ Increase lumber capacity to 10, reduce spawned units to 4 and reduce wood damage to 2 (gold is unchanged).
Build range
Nothing tells us there's a build range, how much and no explicit visual effect, except of course the out of range message. I would add this :
☼ When selecting the build list, show the range you can build on, and delete it when you're out of the build list.
☼ A toggle on any building to permanently see the range.
☼ A building is paused if out of supply range, until being again in it.
Food
Having strong units yet heavy on food is too easily compensated by the fact you have 15 food freed from not having workers, plus 5-6 from each expands. So with 3 bases you have 20-25 more food than your enemies. It becomes not surprising that you can have 10-15 more food in early game while not paying any upkeep. My suggestions in the Build system & economy section brings a lot of gameplay mechanics offsetting this strength without taking all the space your faction created. It must keep its fluff eh :]
Tower rush
Create a supply node from an item next to an enemy base. Spam towers around it
ez no re
Early game
Your faction have way too much punch in T1. I'm not against having elite units in 3mn but they have T3-like abilities in a gamestate when being in tier 1.5 gives normally some small bonuses. Let's start with the phoenix blade.
☼ Number of dice from 2 to 1
Less punch in early game, but it won't affect too much late game.
☼ Range from 90 to 105
It's an elite unit, so to compensate the offense reduction let's give it a bit more range.
☼ Movement speed from 300 to 280
Most of heroes are 290 and above, so it would be a tad faster than foot soldiers but won't be able to circle too easily heroes.
☼ Mastery giving from 1hp/s to 0.5hp/s
That would bring the hp regeneration at T3 from 2.75 to 1.75, which is more than trolls but reasonable since you can have strong heals elsewhere.
☼ Flame aura disabled for 60s when dealing/receiving 200-500 raw damage
☼ Flame aura AoE from 220 to 150
☼ New T2-3 upgrade to make the Flame aura permanent
Phoenix blades are supposed to be melee and strong to hold the line. The flame aura grants it a too offensive role. By reducing its range and damage cap you still have the intimidation effect without getting too much advantage of a long fight. The tech would catch up the intended power you seek.
Then, let's continue with the Sun hunter. I've way much less to say. The soulshot in Tier 2 can really snipe low tier units without training proper tier 2 units. Since it attacks fast, I would reduce the stun chance, stun damage or stun duration ; no need to reduce all of the 3. For its price, it have better stats than riflemen. I would either reduce HP by 100-125 or increase the price to 230-235/45-50. All of this could further apply the intent of having risky early game by expensive units but overwhelming endgame through upgrades. One last thing, you want to make it tanky ? Put it on a mount ! Plus you can increase movement speed to match the mobility increase for all of your units ; finally it better catches up with the beefy 4 food cost.
For these two units, the time creation is a good offset of their strength. You are in the sweet spot : not too long, not to short. However due to your original intent of making building in parallel plus having a steady eco, it's easy to build several barracks to make reinforcements faster. In my test it impacted greatly the power potential of your faction (cf. Build system & economy)
Time to talk about the Eye of the Pyre (abriged to EoP). Having a huge buffer in T1 is counter productive, since other races don't have much dispel, counters or equal buffs. Your faction is supposed to have a power spike in Tier 3, but the trio makes a very balanced core. Personnaly I would put it in Tier 2 while keeping mostly it as it is. If you want to make it a very early support, makes its initiate ability giving less bonus, or for a shorter period, plus not being able to target heroes. The T2 could immediately put EoP at your normal intended state. For the rest :
☼ Base damage from 7 to 14
☼ Side per dice from 2 to 3
☼ Number of dice from 1 to 2
☼ Range from 600 to 650
☼ Projectile speed from 900 to 975
This would make it much stronger for its food price. It's not supposed to be a damage dealer but every bit helps. That would make 8-10 dps. Since your faction focus on long range, the EoP also get a small boost compared to other casters ; the projectile speed makes it a tad more reliable.
☼ Sight range from 1400/800 to 1600/1400
In its name : Eye of the pyre. It also detect invisible units. Fire illuminating the night. I just plugged together the concept you left here ! ^^ If you find it a bit too strong, you can add the bonus sight through its T2 sight upgrade. Some scouting bonus won't hurt your faction at all.
Late game
Since I stomped my enemies just with barrack units, I can't say much about it. I'll play more with the intent of going late units only. However I've stuff about the heroes worth of pointing out.
Fire Keeper
☼ Movement speed increase from 270 to 320
☼ Mounted model
Each race have at least one mobility hero. Since it's a support that would corroborate well.
► Recover ward
Why you based it on Shadow hunter ward ? You could simply transform the healing ward into a hero ability. The only drawback of your spell is you can't see the healing range when targeting.
► Retribution aura
The luck could be much of your side. I would make the critical bonus return periodic for each units, so it won't occur too often on the same unit which attacks fast (i.e heroes), plus making it less efficient against heroes.
► Ragnarok shield
+10 armor is tough, which compensate a lot the given HP regeneration. I would make the ability increasing the minimum armor a unit have, for example at 10. So even if the enemy have armor debuffs, the Ragnarok shield have some interest. If you find this too weak, you can give like 12-14 armor max and 10 armor min.
Inferno magus
► Flame strike & Fire salvo
The two abilities blends a bit too well by stunning enemies already in the flame strike. I would reduce just a bit the damage of the flame strike, and why not compensate with better range for both of the abilities.
► Crack aura
It's so overpowered when sieging enemies. Buildings melts away. Reduce the armor penalty and the aura, or keep the same strength but only to buildings affected by its attack and abilities.
► Meteor shower
Two overpowered siege infernos. When cast on a base and with the crack aura, the enemy buildings melts away even faster. Since they are affected by your upgrades, the bonus adds up like crazy. When fully upgraded you have two times 57-105 Dps with incredible bonus against buildings and unarmored. Plus they get armor upgrades. This is how I would change it :
☼ Not affected by Raging fist and Phoenix flame
☼ Raging fist improvement cost from 250/175 to 225/150
You would get 2 siege inferno with no extra. They will still do their job of barging in melee and siege support without melting buildings instantly. Since Raging fist only affects now one unit, it's natural to temper its price a bit.
☼ Spell immunity transformed into spell resistance
Having two big path blockers immune to spell could be too threatening. So by shifting the immunity to a spell resistance it will keep its summoned intent without literally clog the melee.
Phoenix lord
Put its speed to 270-290 OR make it mounted. It still have the vanilla Archmage movement. Either would do.
► Extermination aura
The damage boost and crits blends too well. I would reduce the damage bonus and the crit damage, however I would definitely increase crit chance to make it more consistent.
► Twin phoenix
One phoenix brings a lot of magic power to an army, but two of them even with a high cost and reload time grant a too strong power spike. This is a tough nut to crack. Many workarounds could be done. Here some of my ideas, each of them not being compatible with the others.
1) Two weaker phoenix but they share received damage.
2) Two weaker phoenix but one gets stronger while the other one is in egg form.
3) Only one regular phoenix, but if the egg is destroyed, it will spawn a weaker phoenix and so on. It will end after like 2-5 iterations. Summoning it again would replace the current one by the regular one, and so on.
4) One regular phoenix, but if the egg is destroyed, will split into two smaller and weaker phoenix with normal summon duration.
Provisional and personal Tier-notation
(legend)
That's all for today. You reached the bottom of the post, congratulations !
TL;DR : Elegantly OP, faction that wants to be too much at the same time.
General feeling
Ahoy, I did 3 solo games against AI. On paper there's a lot of interesting stuff but in practice it's not relevant. Your faction is meant to have a power spike in late game, but what power spike ? The faction is so quickly strong you can even stomp Insane computers with upgraded T1 units. Every details blends well... too well... way too well. The Blade wreck havoc when supported with the support hero. It becomes unstoppable in early game. Its high stats and flame aura crisps blobs of low food units, even upgraded. Also being able to build everything at the same time, instantly have wood and gold income, plus no supply cost from gatherers makes early game very smooth, in a sense of too smooth, like a 2D waifu. I was expecting a tough early game due to everything being expensive (which is the case) but having strong economic assets largely compensates the offset. Even when the AI get tier 3 units, you also have T3-ish since they are available in T1.
In general, my point is your faction wanted to have many bonuses and strategies at the same time. It would be more interesting -gameplay wise- to concentrate on one strategy (which, on paper, are all independently and genuinely elegant). All of it blend too well thus I can understand your reluctance on nerfing everything. Consequently keeping the same strategy and balancing it will create a cursed concept : a frail balance between strength and identity.
Build system & economy
No need of workers, and the gatherers doesn't use food. Range is limited by your main building and farms. Resources production doesn't cost resource beside the building. Workers are invulnerable but you must micro a little your eco so you won't waste time. They instantly get 5 wood before returning to depot. Supply nodes doesn't drop wood but can spawn a single worker. No repair beside sacrificing nodes. That's a lot of advantages for too few drawbacks, however it's clever and coherent on itself. To keep this spirit while balancing it, I would :
☼ Either make the workers immune to spells OR being ethereal OR having an auto invulnerability for X seconds when attacked (could be an upgrade and/or upgraded).
☼ Make workers vulnerable when out of range of supply until back in the base.
☼ Make the spawn periodic (4-10s) when casted, so the spike is not too strong and the decay not too harsh. In other words when casted it will spawn one by one the workers instead of a blob.
☼ Lumber gatherers will focus the rally point if it's on a tree.
☼ Either make each main buildings cost food (4-8) to compensate the worker spawn OR make the ability cost food (3-5) until the burst is gone.
☼ Increase building time by 20 to 50%.
☼ Each building in construction will cost 1-4 food until it's done depending on the type, except core elements like the T1 main and supply to avoid a paradox.
☼ Any destroyed spawner will also destroy its workers.
☼ Increase lumber capacity to 10, reduce spawned units to 4 and reduce wood damage to 2 (gold is unchanged).
Build range
Nothing tells us there's a build range, how much and no explicit visual effect, except of course the out of range message. I would add this :
☼ When selecting the build list, show the range you can build on, and delete it when you're out of the build list.
☼ A toggle on any building to permanently see the range.
☼ A building is paused if out of supply range, until being again in it.
Food
Having strong units yet heavy on food is too easily compensated by the fact you have 15 food freed from not having workers, plus 5-6 from each expands. So with 3 bases you have 20-25 more food than your enemies. It becomes not surprising that you can have 10-15 more food in early game while not paying any upkeep. My suggestions in the Build system & economy section brings a lot of gameplay mechanics offsetting this strength without taking all the space your faction created. It must keep its fluff eh :]
Tower rush
Create a supply node from an item next to an enemy base. Spam towers around it
ez no reEarly game
Your faction have way too much punch in T1. I'm not against having elite units in 3mn but they have T3-like abilities in a gamestate when being in tier 1.5 gives normally some small bonuses. Let's start with the phoenix blade.
☼ Number of dice from 2 to 1
Less punch in early game, but it won't affect too much late game.
☼ Range from 90 to 105
It's an elite unit, so to compensate the offense reduction let's give it a bit more range.
☼ Movement speed from 300 to 280
Most of heroes are 290 and above, so it would be a tad faster than foot soldiers but won't be able to circle too easily heroes.
☼ Mastery giving from 1hp/s to 0.5hp/s
That would bring the hp regeneration at T3 from 2.75 to 1.75, which is more than trolls but reasonable since you can have strong heals elsewhere.
☼ Flame aura disabled for 60s when dealing/receiving 200-500 raw damage
☼ Flame aura AoE from 220 to 150
☼ New T2-3 upgrade to make the Flame aura permanent
Phoenix blades are supposed to be melee and strong to hold the line. The flame aura grants it a too offensive role. By reducing its range and damage cap you still have the intimidation effect without getting too much advantage of a long fight. The tech would catch up the intended power you seek.
Then, let's continue with the Sun hunter. I've way much less to say. The soulshot in Tier 2 can really snipe low tier units without training proper tier 2 units. Since it attacks fast, I would reduce the stun chance, stun damage or stun duration ; no need to reduce all of the 3. For its price, it have better stats than riflemen. I would either reduce HP by 100-125 or increase the price to 230-235/45-50. All of this could further apply the intent of having risky early game by expensive units but overwhelming endgame through upgrades. One last thing, you want to make it tanky ? Put it on a mount ! Plus you can increase movement speed to match the mobility increase for all of your units ; finally it better catches up with the beefy 4 food cost.
For these two units, the time creation is a good offset of their strength. You are in the sweet spot : not too long, not to short. However due to your original intent of making building in parallel plus having a steady eco, it's easy to build several barracks to make reinforcements faster. In my test it impacted greatly the power potential of your faction (cf. Build system & economy)
Time to talk about the Eye of the Pyre (abriged to EoP). Having a huge buffer in T1 is counter productive, since other races don't have much dispel, counters or equal buffs. Your faction is supposed to have a power spike in Tier 3, but the trio makes a very balanced core. Personnaly I would put it in Tier 2 while keeping mostly it as it is. If you want to make it a very early support, makes its initiate ability giving less bonus, or for a shorter period, plus not being able to target heroes. The T2 could immediately put EoP at your normal intended state. For the rest :
☼ Base damage from 7 to 14
☼ Side per dice from 2 to 3
☼ Number of dice from 1 to 2
☼ Range from 600 to 650
☼ Projectile speed from 900 to 975
This would make it much stronger for its food price. It's not supposed to be a damage dealer but every bit helps. That would make 8-10 dps. Since your faction focus on long range, the EoP also get a small boost compared to other casters ; the projectile speed makes it a tad more reliable.
☼ Sight range from 1400/800 to 1600/1400
In its name : Eye of the pyre. It also detect invisible units. Fire illuminating the night. I just plugged together the concept you left here ! ^^ If you find it a bit too strong, you can add the bonus sight through its T2 sight upgrade. Some scouting bonus won't hurt your faction at all.
Late game
Since I stomped my enemies just with barrack units, I can't say much about it. I'll play more with the intent of going late units only. However I've stuff about the heroes worth of pointing out.
Fire Keeper
☼ Movement speed increase from 270 to 320
☼ Mounted model
Each race have at least one mobility hero. Since it's a support that would corroborate well.
► Recover ward
Why you based it on Shadow hunter ward ? You could simply transform the healing ward into a hero ability. The only drawback of your spell is you can't see the healing range when targeting.
► Retribution aura
The luck could be much of your side. I would make the critical bonus return periodic for each units, so it won't occur too often on the same unit which attacks fast (i.e heroes), plus making it less efficient against heroes.
► Ragnarok shield
+10 armor is tough, which compensate a lot the given HP regeneration. I would make the ability increasing the minimum armor a unit have, for example at 10. So even if the enemy have armor debuffs, the Ragnarok shield have some interest. If you find this too weak, you can give like 12-14 armor max and 10 armor min.
Inferno magus
► Flame strike & Fire salvo
The two abilities blends a bit too well by stunning enemies already in the flame strike. I would reduce just a bit the damage of the flame strike, and why not compensate with better range for both of the abilities.
► Crack aura
It's so overpowered when sieging enemies. Buildings melts away. Reduce the armor penalty and the aura, or keep the same strength but only to buildings affected by its attack and abilities.
► Meteor shower
Two overpowered siege infernos. When cast on a base and with the crack aura, the enemy buildings melts away even faster. Since they are affected by your upgrades, the bonus adds up like crazy. When fully upgraded you have two times 57-105 Dps with incredible bonus against buildings and unarmored. Plus they get armor upgrades. This is how I would change it :
☼ Not affected by Raging fist and Phoenix flame
☼ Raging fist improvement cost from 250/175 to 225/150
You would get 2 siege inferno with no extra. They will still do their job of barging in melee and siege support without melting buildings instantly. Since Raging fist only affects now one unit, it's natural to temper its price a bit.
☼ Spell immunity transformed into spell resistance
Having two big path blockers immune to spell could be too threatening. So by shifting the immunity to a spell resistance it will keep its summoned intent without literally clog the melee.
Phoenix lord
Put its speed to 270-290 OR make it mounted. It still have the vanilla Archmage movement. Either would do.
► Extermination aura
The damage boost and crits blends too well. I would reduce the damage bonus and the crit damage, however I would definitely increase crit chance to make it more consistent.
► Twin phoenix
One phoenix brings a lot of magic power to an army, but two of them even with a high cost and reload time grant a too strong power spike. This is a tough nut to crack. Many workarounds could be done. Here some of my ideas, each of them not being compatible with the others.
1) Two weaker phoenix but they share received damage.
2) Two weaker phoenix but one gets stronger while the other one is in egg form.
3) Only one regular phoenix, but if the egg is destroyed, it will spawn a weaker phoenix and so on. It will end after like 2-5 iterations. Summoning it again would replace the current one by the regular one, and so on.
4) One regular phoenix, but if the egg is destroyed, will split into two smaller and weaker phoenix with normal summon duration.
Provisional and personal Tier-notation
(legend)
From best to worse
| M&S] When Mythical 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 |
| Aesthetics B (How well the graphics blends with Warcraft 3 while being elegant) Blood elf style is simple yet effective. Nothing too fancy but that's very coherent in a good way. The icons would benefit from small color tweaks to fit your choice, but that's not a big deal. However since it's a lot Blood elf like it put me huge bias. |
| Fluff D+ (The epicness, spice, philosophy and background of the faction) I'm not sensible of your universe, which will surely bias my interpretation. I won't say it's incoherent nor bad, but being straightfoward won't make it remembered well. However I saw creative use in names, unit types and technology. |
| Feel & juice A+ (How fun is it to play the faction, how well the faction gives you positive feedback) Here's the biggest strength of your faction. It works surprisingly well. The way you kickstart your faction, bursting firepower all over the map and bringing elite units to the battlefield... that's very good. Also the numerous upgrades makes you feel strong in late game. Buuuuut since most of it comes from its overpowered mechanics that's my biais. If for example you blindly apply all my suggestions that would drop to a decent B, which will benefit the other points. |
| Strategy and tactic A- (How the mechanics blends together, giving the faction its unique approach) On paper, I don't have much to say. That's decent gamedesign. But on execution it have a lot of side effects. Everything being expensive makes you picking only specific units, increased by the numerous expensive option you have. Most of your faction becomes very stiff, I mean... stiffer than it should be. Each units are strong by themselves so players would tend to focus on versatile units. You also loose a lot of score through some units having the same roles (i.e why using siege units when your current Helix magus gives enough siege support to raze any base at level 6). Even with the numerous flaws I pointed out, the overall design hooked my interest. I see good potential in it. Don't worry we all gone through this :] |
| Balance E- (How its strengths leave space to the rest, does it blends gameplay-wise together with the other 4 races) Here's the black sheep of your faction and maybe for a lot of contest faction due to lack of time. You already have everything needed since Tier 1, plus upgrading them later. Broken siege and quick power up in early game. Fortunatly I played and analyzed a very early version which need a lot of polishing. |
| Content A (Does the faction feels complete compared to its intent and the other races) Units are in a sweet spot. Not too many, not too few. Lots of upgrades and options. Each buildings have its use and nothing feels out of place. You would scratch some more points if there's a 4rth hero and more item options. Many Warcraft 3 abilities are recycled, don't worry their use is justified. |
| Handling & ergonomics A- (Does this faction have the proper data shown, how easy is it to understand) Not much to say. Many upgrades on the same building could drown a bit a new player under too many information. The supply zone would benefit a lot from a clear visual effect. Abilities and special effects doesn't have overlaps, which is good. We can understand what visual effect correspond to what spell. Fixing what I pointed out about it would definitely increase into a solid A. There's no any abstract descriptions nor wrong data displayed. |
| Triggers, code, overall polishing B- (Is the map correctly coded, no leaks, have efficient algorithm, are details taken care of) The map doesn't have much complexity, it's not a problem in itself. Some triggers could move their conditions into a if-then-else action to avoid using too many calls. Plus using variables could avoid numerous picked unit calls. Small little leaks here and here : Other nitpicks : Even with all of it, it don't have any major or minor issues. Everything works smoothly. Any players won't see any problems in game, but the Sigma presence register 2 could destroy the performance in a huge and thicc 24 player map. If you fix all of this, you'll reach B+ no sweat. |
| Contest rules A+ (Only relevant in a Tech tree contest) Nothing to say. Red white is very well respected. Since the specifications left a lot of free will, there's no penalties. |
| Overall tier B+ Work work. You have the big advantage to have a lot of time and space to grow the faction. If you manage to fix everything, you would slide into a solid A. However making it too complex would break its already heavy tech tree. |
| Personal taste C+ (No impact on the rest of the notation, just by curiosity) The faction transported me into a good ride due to its overpowered content. After cooling down I remark the numerous gameplay tweaks the faction needs. After that it would loose its power to gain coherence, which will make the map objectively better but less my taste. I enjoyed playing it several times but that's all. Your map doesn't become any worse, I assure you. It's just not much my cup of tea. That's why I encourage you to burst the best out of you and I'm eager to cross swords with you on the next contest !  |
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