Too OP for a flying unit?

[ArchDuke]

Thanks for explaining, I realized you were right when I really thought about the concept

 

[Lord Alyx]

From my own experience in balancing units I learned that flying units need to be susceptible to anti air if they can effectively take down bases otherwise you have a short offensive game where each side is trying to mass their air units to take down the other's base, and no one likes those games, especially so in campaigns

 

[ArchDuke]

So how did that battle with the island pan out, the one you tweaked those flying machines for?

 

[Lord Alyx]

You want me to describe map and the gameplay?

 

[ArchDuke]

Yea, unless you can just send me that map itself, cause you got me really curious

 

[Lord Alyx]

I can't find the map, but I can pretty much explain everything about it.

Give me some time to write it up

 

[Lord Alyx]

Now let me first explain the story context of this mission: You are a general fighting on behalf of your nation, a rival high ranking general of the nation you are fighting has his primary base and seed of power on this island, your main task is to destroy the general’s primary base (grey), there are 4 other bases on the island all surrounding it. You have access to heavy air power (dragons, gyphons, eagles) Your army consists of the regular TFT arsenal with catapults replacing mortar teams, archers replacing riflesman, and units called crusaders replacing knight which are almost identical except for more hp and greater damage against buildings. You also have two heroes, a paladin with some good abilities, and an archmage. Now for the first part of the mission you have to recruit ships and destroy the blockage guarding the entrance to the island (this is why the air massing happened, players wanted to just attack the main base with air units) after the blockade is destroyed you make a base on the island and essentially destroy the other bases, grey is literally at the far back of the rectangular island, its isolated from all sides by hills and has 5 hero units including the general, also besides having flying machines the base had a unit called Cleaver which was a 700hp re-colored footman with critical strike and ensnare, and a unit called Oath-Keeper which had 1280hp, Resistant skin, Frenzy, and Devotion aura from what I can remember. The battle was difficult because the grey base was uphill from the landing point and also because of the several choke points along the way.

 

[ArchDuke]

Frenzy, is that some kind of custom spell?

 

[Lord Alyx]

It's basically bloodlust, its a default ability

 

[Lord Alyx]

@ArchDuke @rep comment; elite units have to be OP, otherwise they wouldnt be elite

 

[ArchDuke]

I never recall knowing of this "Frenzy" ability, is it never used in normal gameplay or what?

 

[Lord Alyx]

I think some unit you control uses it, I can't think of it off the top of my head

 

[Lord Aiden]

So how many taurens can an Oath Keeper take?

 

[Lord Alyx]

It's not really about the amount of any unit an Oath Keeper can take on one on one, rather the effect 5 or 6 oathkeepers surrounded by other units have together, summation effect you could call it

 

[Lord Aiden]

So wait they're basically like tauren with a devotion aura with a bit of shaman mixed in?

 

[Lord Alyx]

From what I remember Frenzy isn't mana reliant (it costs no mana) but can only be cast on the unit that has it. Hope that answers your question.

 

[Lord Aiden]

I gotta say you know your stuff well, should've finished your campaign, would've been a pleasure to play

 

[Lord Alyx]

There were all kinds of complications with that, if I ever have the time though I'd try to at least get a playable version out, Im too busy to really mod nowadays

 

[Lord Aiden]

Ok, since you seem to know a great deal about modding wc3, can you please answer a few questions on here, it'll really help me out, you dont have to hurry if you're busy, take your time

 

[Lord Alyx]

Im all ears, or rather eyes since this is a board

 

[Lord Aiden]

Whats the key to creating excellent heroes (battle wise)
What exactly is the secret to creating good elite units (I've seen you have some experience with this)
Which type of aerial units do you prefer to give the player and why
How many heroes should the player get to control in a typical mission
Defense vs offense, what should be stronger, should the player get excellent offensive units or defensive
How to make missions really enjoyable
What types of items do you prefer to give heroes
Ways to control difficulty
How many missions do you think a good campaign should have

 

[Lord Alyx]

>Whats the key to creating excellent heroes (battle wise)

Give them custom abilities that the player will enjoy using, otherwise I don't know how to answer this question

>What exactly is the secret to creating good elite units (I've seen you have some experience with this)

Specify what purpose the elite unit serves, then pick out abilities suited for that purpose, balance out the unit, also all elite units should have Resistant skin, and maybe a tweaked elune's grace to reduce damage from spells and magic (Otherwise I've seen players easily beat them by spamming spells)

>Which type of aerial units do you prefer to give the player and why

If you give the player any aerial unit that costs less than 3 food it will get spammed heavily, so I tend to give the player air units that are strong but have a higher food cost (gryphons, dragons etc.) If the player has 100 food at his disposal, with 5 going to workers in the mine, and another 5 going to lumber workers, the player wont be able to spam aerial units that cost 5 or 6 food while maintaining some kind of a standing army

>How many heroes should the player get to control in a typical mission

Varies by mission, but usually at least 2 heroes, and usually those 2 complement each other, in some missions I would give as many as five heroes but the enemy would also have a good number of heroes to counter this

>Defense vs offense, what should be stronger, should the player get excellent offensive units or defensive

This depends on how you want your mission to go, too much offensive stuff and the mission usually ends fast, if the enemy has high defenses compared to the player's offensive capacity then the mission will be long (and I tend to like this)

>How to make missions really enjoyable

Add good music, mid mission cinematics, plot twists, etc. Look at other highly rated campaigns

>What types of items do you prefer to give heroes

Ok I didn't really give my hero items, I can recall giving them an orb item to make sure they can attack air units but that was it, I would recommend giving heroes some healing items, look at other campaigns

>Ways to control difficulty

Hundreds of ways to do this, too numerous to list on here, look at other campaigns

>How many missions do you think a good campaign should have

Anywhere from 5 to 18 or whatever the largest number of missions which can be put in a campaign

 

[Lord Aiden]

Hey @-Phoenix- where do you get inspiration for some of the work you create, its different from some of the other stuff people produce

 

[Lord Alyx]

You mean the scenarios? The unit? Or what specifically?

 

[Lord Aiden]

The units mainly, that's some creative stuff with the oathkeeper unit

 

[Lord Alyx]

Well at the time I was working on the map I've watched the movie the expandables (-the first one-) and they had these army soldiers with face paint. That got me thinking what if I create something from the concept, like a tier 3 soldier that is purely vicious and dedicated to the cause (basically fanatical), and out of the creative storm came out the oathkeeper concept

Here's a picture for reference of what those soldiers looked like

But they seemed much more vicious, and menacing in the movie

 

[Lord Aiden]

That soldier looked like he's been smoking with @San

 

[Lord Alyx]

lmfao

Yeah it was not the best picture to illustrate my point about those soldiers presented in the expendables

 

[Lord Alyx]

Here's a "better" image, they're meant to look scary and fanatical, at least that's what they seemed like to me when I originally saw the film

 

[Lord Aiden]

I got you, where the oath keepers everything you expected them to be?

 

[Lord Alyx]

Yea, I think them being in the mission was what made certain parts of it so hard, hearing that frenzy sound while seeing them might've caused the player to jilt a little if you know what I mean

 

[ArchDuke]

Ah @Shar Dundred's Merciless are still better

 

[Lord Aiden]

You trying to troll Shar into comming here or are you seriously making a comparison between 2 completely different units from 2 completely different campaigns?

 

[Lord Alyx]

@ArchDuke Stop being a damn troll

 

[ArchDuke]

Wheres the fun in life if you can't go trolling a little?

 

[Lord Alyx]

@ArchDuke @rep comment, well ye that unit is awesome

 

[ArchDuke]

The Frenzy ability is especially what makes an already strong unit elite, lets not forget the contribution of the devotion aura

 

[Lord Alyx]

Ok look

Resistant skin - Basically makes the unit like a hero when it comes to spells, spells effect it much less than normal units, plus it cannot be charmed, polymorphed, transmuted, etc.

Devotion aura - Makes both the unit with the ability as well as surrounding friendlies gain +3 armor, which enable the units to take much more damage

Frenzy - This makes the unit even more fiercer, this ability allows the hero to attack and run at a much faster rate, this incredibly enhancing the effectiveness of this unit. Much of the units' standing as an elite unit can be directly attributed to the Frenzy ability.

 

[Lord Aiden]

I was gonna write this in the rep, but I think it runs out of space

I added the Frenzy ability to a knight, a knight which learned animal war training, but no other upgrades (weapons and armor at level 0) can beat a tauren which has also been unupgraded

 

[ArchDuke]

Holy...I didn't know it was that powerful

 

[Lord Alyx]

Yea, it greatly enhances any unit which has it.

In fact if you want your tier 3 heavy unit to become even more powerful have Frenzy as a researchable upgrade.

Let's say you have a tier 3 heavy unit that has around 1,000 HP and deals 25-35 damage with 3-6 armor, giving it frenzy will transform it from being a strong unit to being a beast

 

[ArchDuke]

Frenzy = Beast Mode

 

[Lord Aiden]

Hey people, I've been somewhat busy late, but I've got some time as of late,

@-Phoenix- Since you seem to have a wealth of knowledge about unit and abilities, can you give me some advice regarding this particular concept I want to materialize into a unit?

Now when Lord Siler was around he had this idea for a bodyguard at this point the backstory of the faction is completely irrelevant, but basically he had this concept of an elite unit which is basically a vampire; it had arthas' hp leech ability was designed as a heavy elite unit, it was supposed to be called " Duskblade " I believe, I know Im not providing much information here all I'm asking you to answer is suppose this unit leeches 25% of its attack back as hp, how strong would you make this unit, what abilities would you give it, food cost, etc.

 

[Lord Alyx]

Is this supposed to be some kind of hero slayer? tell me approximately how strong you expect the unit to be, and provide you some input
Also you don't want something with life leech to be a heavy elite unit; it will be very hard to destroy

 

[Lord Aiden]

It's not a hero slayer, I would say it would be on the same level as a Druid of the Claw in Bear form, without the roar

 

[Lord Alyx]

Arthas' life steal is a very powerful ability, it can make units very hard to destroy, so to counter this effect I'd suggest you give the unit an attack range of 18-28 or so unupgraded, also lower the amount of health regeneration from .25/sec to something like .15 or .10 because this unit will just regenerate health like crazy and will be undestroyable, thirdly dont give it too much hp for the same reason, I think around 750hp is fine, with something like 850 being the absolute max, I would suggest 4 or 5 food, leaning toward 5 so the unit would not be spammed, in terms of abilities you could give it resistant skin but make sure it costs 5 food then. If you want it attacking air unit either give it a second attack that can target air, the ensnare ability, or an ability like frost bolt that has been tweaked not to consume mana and also tweaked so it can only target air units.

So here are my suggestions

"Duskblade"
>750HP
>18-28 attack
>.15 health regeneration per second
>3 Armor (Heavy)
>Life steal (25%) ability, Resistant Skin
>5 Food


You might think its a bit unfair but every hit this unit takes will regenerate it 4hp, so you do the math

 

[Lord Aiden]

Thanks, but you never mentioned that attack cooldown time

 

[Lord Alyx]

You have to test that out yourself and see what balances well, I can estimate that it will likely fall between 1.3 and 1.9 seconds, something around 1.5-1.6, but this is all guesswork based on my own balancing of units

 

[ArchDuke]

@-Phoenix- I see you're online,

I think that vampire Duskblade unit you suggested to Lord Aiden would get spammed like crazy just because of what it is, the whole thing is a bad concept unless you only have the enemy in a campaign have some of those units in a very limited quantity

 

[Lord Alyx]

I have to agree with you in some sense. But if the unit costs 5 or more food and the enemy has a number of effective counters this just shouldn't be the case