5.6 Brainstorming thread

[Seravy]

One of the patches posted on the wiki makes it so that gained hit points (Exaltation and Life Steal) cannot revive figures killed by irrecoverable damage. So basically if a Wraith with 2 figures exorcised steals 10 hit points then instead of regaining a figure and healing 2 hp, - or whatever currently happens, not even sure - the wraith will get +5 gold hit points for each of the 2 remaining figures (and existing irrecoverable damage will increase by 10 to offset the extra hit points applied to the dead figures).

Do we want this in CoM?

[Sapher]

One of the patches posted on the wiki makes it so that gained hit points (Exaltation and Life Steal) cannot revive figures killed by irrecoverable damage. So basically if a Wraith with 2 figures exorcised steals 10 hit points then instead of regaining a figure and healing 2 hp, - or whatever currently happens, not even sure -  the wraith will get +5 gold hit points for each of the 2 remaining figures (and existing irrecoverable damage will increase by 10 to offset the extra hit points applied to the dead figures).

Do we want this in CoM?

Only if exaltation/life drain would heal a hero damaged by irrecoverable damage.

[Seravy]

Heroes are single figure though - they will never get a figure revived anyway.

[Seravy]

Here is a copy of my latest post on the irreversible damage vs extra hit points issue from the wiki :

I see this as a design decision, not really a bugfix, and a complex one at that. There are plenty of ways "extra hits" could behave in theory (set A):

   Split equally between figures, dead included. This would be consistent with effects that grant extra "base" hit points like Lionheart or Charm of Life, but would mean a major nerf to Life Steal and Exaltation for multiple figure units. I don't think this is a good choice.
   Split equally between still living figures. Dead figures would then gain additional maximal health so a unit with less living figures would gain more maximal hit points but would be much less likely to reach that through regular healing. This is still a nerf, not recovering figures means less damage output. I don't really think there is a need for a nerf though.
   Split equally between figures, excluding irrecoverable dead. This works on the assumtion that those figures can't get healed so any maximal hp on them not only is wasted like "1", but also won't turn into a "benefit" by raising maximal hp - those figures can't get healed to begin with.

But there is another part to it (set B) :

   Apply as if it was normal healing first, then as extra hit points.  This is basically saying we allow healing irrecoverable dead with extra hp effects. Picking this makes the above choice irrelevant as there can't be dead figures in the unit when extra hp is distributed.
   Or always apply as extra hit points, even if there is damage to cancel out. This means maximal hp increases and rounding down by figures happen, and figures can't revive. Horrible option for gameplay but best for consistency as buff type sources of extra hp (Lionheart, levels, Charm of Life etc) work this way already.
   Apply as if it was normal healing first, but not cancel irrecoverable damage. Then apply the rest as extra hit points. This makes A1 not relevant and identical to A3. This is what currently happens.

First we need to pick from the second set as it determines the choices available in the first. I rule out option B2, it pretty much makes Exaltation a useless spell for all but single figure units. B3 seems the most logical which forces picking A2 or A3 from the other group. Picking A3 seems better and I think that's what your patch is meant to do. No healing is lost but noirrecoverable figures are recovered. However we can also pick B1. Speaking of which I'm not entirely sure what actually happens currently? I got the impression it's B1 - extra hp canceling irrecoverable damage and reviving figures anyway, but not sure.

Furthermore there is a third part to this, assuming we did pick the 3/3 options in the first two. What happens to figures that do have irrecoverable damage on them but are still alive? Here we have another 3 choices (set C) :

   We treat them as irrecoverable dead so they are excluded from the healing. The consequence is a single figure unit can't ever heal even if it has taken a single point of  irrecoverable damage.Very harsh. This makes these effects strictly better for multiple figure units.
   We let them gain extra hp as if they were not affected. In this case said single figure unit is effectively recovering frm irrecoverable damage, the net result is no different from it getting healed. However this won't be true for multi-figure units, making these spells strictly superior on single figure units where taking damage didn't reduce the offensive capacity of the unit in the first place.
   We draw an arbiraty line like "do 1 below half hp, 2 otherwise". This is not player friendly.

I don't really see any good choices in this one which is probably my only reason to consider B1 or B2. Basically "extra hp" fundamentally contradits the concept of irrecoverable damage because if allowed, and if it doesn't completely override it (B1) or stops being a healing type effect (B2) then we need to draw an arbitary line somewhere on how much irrecoverable damage makes the healing fail and how. (Your answer is, whole figures, loss of offensive power isn't recovered by health is anyway. That's a valid option and means picking C2. But ultimately that still means we consiciously pick that completely healing irrecoverable damage on heroes or stage beetles is ok, but on halberdiers or wraiths it isn't and they need to stay penalized in their offensive power. Which also means reduced Life Steal capacity for the future as it is done per figure so that's actually a very singificant difference for wraiths and death knights.)

Furthermore, there is another a new feature that comes with combat rivers : moats, basically river tiles around city walls in combat.  This is my current opinion about that :

Moats, for the time being, I like your idea of river or swamp tiles. Although I am worried it might make it easier to defend against the AI while it doesn't really help slowing down the human player, in which case disabling it altogether is best. (or coming up with a condition that is easier to achive for the AI. Choosing Swamp and river tiles is something the human is far better at, unfortunately.)

Actually, how often do human players use walking melee units to attack a city? Not that often I think? The AI (and neutral monsters) do it all the time so moats are probably overall bad for the game. One of the most important current focus in CoM was to make sure heavier garrisons are necessary for humans and moats go against that design....unless, the condition is to have a large, expensive army garrisoning the city which AI players will have, humans usually not. But that doesn't make sense for flavor at all.

[Seravy]

I decided not to move Night Stalkers to rare. So the question is what to do with them as uncommon.
Higher RP cost is obvious, they should go up to the 1920 RP slot, moving Possession or Black Prayer to 1280 and the other to 1600. (Shadow Demons are still better and should be the most expensive slot.)

Reducing their hp by 3-5 could make them much less viable for attacking things that have high resistance, but makes them quite vulnerable to spells. They are already a bit too easy to kill as neutrals or AI units. Maybe reducing the HP but buffing movement to 4 in exchange, so they can better avoid detection is a good idea. It also makes them a larger threat in hands of the AI as they are more likely to reach and attack weak resistance targets before nuked. The increased amount of combat terrain obstacles in this update (rivers, trees, swamps) might require doing that too. Running for stall is not an issue because they are invisible to begin with so they can stall regardless of movement speed So this is one of those cases where increasing speed is not too much of an issue (and if the enemy sees them the low hp means they can be killed anyway.) so even 5 moves don't seem too much of an issue - except being faster on the overland map certainly is one and the jump from 3 to 4 moves is significant.

[Seravy]

As there was a crash bug reported, I'll probably postpone the nature summon decision again and only change the Night Stalkers. If you want to post a suggestion on that, do it now, I'm making the decision tomorrow.

[MilesBeyond]

Night Stalkers are really tough because their whole shtick is being incredibly powerful except for when they're hard countered, at which point they're quite unimpressive. This means they occupy the uncomfortable position of being simultaneously too strong and too weak, depending on circumstances. So a buff or nerf that's even marginally too much can easily throw the unit out of whack and make it too strong or too weak. So far I think the current change works but I haven't had too much of a chance to test it.

It's also hard because as invisible units, Night Stalkers have the added advantage of being able to cheese the AI something fierce, albeit to a much lesser extent in CoM than MoM.

[Ozymandyus]

I'm messing around with Night Stalkers in a current game. So far I'd have to say I'm fairly unimpressed, but am reserving judgement until I've had a chance to test further.

[Ozymandyus]

Ok, I've played a whole game now based mostly around a summoning build, primarily focusing on getting night stalkers asap. My conclusion:

Meh.

I think MilesBeyond had it mostly right, they're quite powerful unless hard countered, at which point they're very weak. Since the change to their strength, the 'quite powerful' part seems to be noticeably diminished, while there remain an abundance of counters. True sight is obvious, but it's not immediately accessible. What really works them over is bless, which comes very early in Life and only needs 1 book. A less obvious tactic I ran into, but incredibly annoying, is that a caster with even one Death book typically has access to zombies, which are illusion (and thus, invisibility) immune. Summon one cheap unit of zombies at the back of your lines, and suddenly all your stalkers are visible...and thus easy to kill.

My suggestion would either be to revert the changes to their strength, or else at least make them movement 5. The extra mobility would help if they're revealed too early.