Death: Balancing

[Asfex]

I am about death city spells. It definitely need some boost fun effects...
How about:
1. Evil precence - increase casting skill,temporary (as long as it is in effect),overland and combat, by 1 per destroyed mana or building level (variants).
2. famine- add mana to the caster's pool, 1 per 1lvl of population
3. Cursed lands -add mana directly to the casting skill distribution, pop*prodBonus/50 ?
4. warp node - resettle node, if cast twice.
5. pestilence..... I think it strong enough.

[b0rsuk]

Skeletons already have an amazing ability - Missile Immunity. Alas, most normal missiles in the game are pathetic, and magical missiles dominate. Want to boost skeletons ? Make bowmen, catapults etc more useful.

Then I would make sure that Skeletons work as archer killers. Their initial stats are good compared to infantry, but they don't benefit from experience or weapon upgrades. Maybe there could be a way to give them mithril or adamantium. Skeletons are summoned in cities, so perhaps city's access to Adamantium, Magic W. and Mithril could determine weapons they use. Thematically many Death creatures were formerly Normal units, so an exception can be made for them.

[kyrub]

Thesis: In general, there are too many summons in MoM, that are in fact very similar each to another. Catnip should change that, in many ways: make creatures more different in capacities (like Wraiths ignoring City walls etc), different in fonctionnality (like Werewolves or combat summons etc), make them more unique.


Skeletons are not bad by themselves, I agree. But skeletons and ghouls on common level are disapointing. Two slow, ground, weak units, too similar for most of the death games I played.

If you look at every magic realm, it has 1 common spell that works against shooters (nice design by the way!). Web, Warp Wood, Guardian Wind, Endurance (ehm) and - Skeletons. Sadly, this does not work, because you never bring them with you all the way. Making skeletons a combat summon and giving them higher speed could solve the trick, for me. Making them combat summon dependent on dead normal units makes them unique in fonctionnality.

[b0rsuk]

Offtopic, but I think it's Green that's really bad in summon department. Green (Nature) has strongest creatures in M:tG. Often most cost-effective. They tried to emulate that in MoM, and failed. Nature just has many summons, but they're not interesting and not strong (most of them). I fail to see how this can be remedied with limitations of the current codebase and assembly hacking. New abilities are mostly out of question. One way Nature summons could be saved is to simply make them unusually good deal (underpriced compared to summons from other schools).

At least Skeletons are good sometimes, you can summon a couple and capture a city. Try that with Sprites, War Bears. Ghouls can be good for rushing on Impossible if you start close to cities. Weakness and/or Cloak of Fear and you have new cities with undead police. Works against orcs, barbarians, high men, nomads. Cloak of Fear is good against lizardmen as well. But I like the proposed change to Skeletons (summon from dead friendly Normal units).

[Asfex]

If you look at every magic realm, it has 1 common spell that works against shooters (nice design by the way!). Web, Warp Wood, Guardian Wind, Endurance (ehm) and - Skeletons. Sadly, this does not work, because you never bring them with you all the way. Making skeletons a combat summon and giving them higher speed could solve the trick, for me. Making them combat summon dependent on dead normal units makes them unique in fonctionnality.

You say, ranged unit must kill one of your, then you summmon skeleton, then it goes to the archers, then it goes to the enemy archers without ammmo already,then you ask:where is my army?I see only skeletons!
offtopic: by the nature creatures: I think nature must have something to see invisible units on the overland map.So, question:Can see invisible the illusion immunity creature with big scouting on the overland?

[b0rsuk]

Nature's Eye, the city enchantment, would be better if it detected invisible units. And no, Nature doesn't have to have invisibility detectors. Invisibility is not natural. It makes sense that natural creatures are most vulnerable to it.

[momfan]

But I like the proposed change to Skeletons (summon from dead friendly Normal units).

I also like the idea of Skeletons requiring a dead normal unit, but I think it should be usable on dead enemies as well, just like Animate Dead. After all, who cares where the bones come from?

Animate Dead allows you to keep the unit after battle, so Skeletons should persist after battle too, at a cost of 1.

Thematically, I think Skeletons should move at 1. Doesn't make sense that animated bones with no muscles etc should be all that quick.

For game balance purposes, skeletons should not get mithril/adamantium weapons, as that would give them too big an edge. Werewolves and Zombies do keep their magic weapons, but they are expensive to create.

Skeletons should be cannon fodder - not great, but cheap and abundant. As a combat summons they will be useful throughout most of the game.

[b0rsuk]

Then what will replace Skeletons in their "strategic map cannon fodder" role ? Skeletons are by far the cheapest summonable creature. 25 vs 40 of Hell Hound, nearly twice as expensive. Bears are 70. Even Magic Spirit is more expensive at 30, and it's nowhere as good in combat.

[momfan]

Then what will replace Skeletons in their "strategic map cannon fodder" role ? Skeletons are by far the cheapest summonable creature. 25 vs 40 of Hell Hound, nearly twice as expensive. Bears are 70. Even Magic Spirit is more expensive at 30, and it's nowhere as good in combat.

Once you kill/lose one normal unit you can raise Skeletons, so it's not that hard to get an army of them.

Also, for gameplay balance purposes it may not be critical to get a cheap overland summons:

Life: Guardian Spirit 80
Chaos: Hell Hounds 40 / Fire Elemental 20 (combat only)
Nature: War Bears 70
Sorcery: Nagas 100 / Phantom Warriors 10 (combat only)
Death: Ghouls 80 / Skeletons 25

Other spell colors don't really have cannon fodder except Chaos' hell hounds. So it may not be critical for Death to be able to summon Skeletons overland.

Alternatively, we could have it both ways if the code allows - when cast overland it creates Skeletons from the air, when cast in combat you need a dead normal unit as raw material.

Comments?

Here's a far-out idea: if a Death wizard picks Infernal Power, in addition to the extra mana, he/she gets Skeleton Mastery - dead enemy normal units are raised as Skeletons. Not as good as Zombie Mastery, but well worth the 2 pick cost.

Then we don't need to have Skeletons as a combat summons - just win a fight and you've got them.

[b0rsuk]

I like the idea of "skeleton mastery". If that proves too powerful, there might be ways to limit it. For example, one skeleton max per battle and only if an enemy unit dies.