The "Mono Stacking" Problem

[Kitschy]

From what I saw from dev posts they think that unit class counter system works fine, so yeah ...
To be fair tho some of them are harder to fix than others, like how would you buff range units at this point. ('cause gap closers aren't going away and you can't really make range units tanky and no one probably want the comeback of rainbow archer too)

btw Avoxel said that he wanted to have a game with MP peeps at some point (if that is possible that is), this should at least showcase the most glaring issues from that side of the pond I guess.

 

[GloatingSwine]

To be fair tho some of them are harder to fix than others, like how would you buff range units at this point. ('cause gap closers aren't going away and you can't really make range units tanky and no one probably want the comeback of rainbow archer too)

The problems with (physical) ranged units are severalfold:

1. The AI handles them abysmally, charges them into danger and fails to protect them. (The worst are primal darters because it treats disengaging shot as some kind of power attack so it preferentially moves into melee to use it).

2. There isn't a Tier 4 ranged unit. We don't actually know what ranged units look like in endgame because they don't exist. They get outscaled too hard to contribute better than one more melee, and the elemental setup effect of their enchantments is inherent on both the degenerate T4s (PTs set you on fire, Stormbringers electrify so they can exploit with a single melee enchant).

3. You can turn them off by standing next to them with any cheap trash unit (especially if you can get cheap fast flying stuff like the ranger bow with free grimbeak crows or ritualist wyvern).

4. They need to deal with accuracy and cover, which most skirmishers especially at higher tiers don't because they get an "always hits" attack but provide the same benefits to a stack.

5. They don't share enchants with battlemages and supports, but all melee share all melee enchants.

 

[Kitschy]

The problems with (physical) ranged units are severalfold:

1. The AI handles them abysmally, charges them into danger and fails to protect them. (The worst are primal darters because it treats disengaging shot as some kind of power attack so it preferentially moves into melee to use it).

2. There isn't a Tier 4 ranged unit. We don't actually know what ranged units look like in endgame because they don't exist. They get outscaled too hard to contribute better than one more melee, and the elemental setup effect of their enchantments is inherent on both the degenerate T4s (PTs set you on fire, Stormbringers electrify so they can exploit with a single melee enchant).

3. You can turn them off by standing next to them with any cheap trash unit (especially if you can get cheap fast flying stuff like the ranger bow with free grimbeak crows or ritualist wyvern).

4. They need to deal with accuracy and cover, which most skirmishers especially at higher tiers don't because they get an "always hits" attack but provide the same benefits to a stack.

5. They don't share enchants with battlemages and supports, but all melee share all melee enchants.

What would you think T4 range will look like? Cody was saying Ironclads are being used to some success in MP and those are essentially T5 range units.

I don't think 3 is going away at all, but who knows.
4 just makes Guided Projectile mandatory, no?
5 is most likely from devs being afraid repeating what was around release.

 

[seperamos]

We need seige units as late game ranged units. The ironclad is a mobile artillery unit that can touch mages, snipers, and massed infantry. I would like to see more snipers, multi-target archer/gunslinger, or artillery/seige units. Every affinity or culture should have an ironclad counterpart, whether its by mage, archer, or seige.

Perhaps skirmishers and archers can be the two roles that share enchants, with archers/gunners having better range and melee escape abilities, and skirmishers lacking range but gaining better melee stats or skills.

 

[aerothgow]

What are those reasons?
The one when you see rigid vertical progression as the balancing solution and don't think about that this approach dramatically cuts unit variety and then complain that there is not enough units in the late game.
Or the one when you are making a point about how there is too many cleanses and this somehow makes low Status Res not important enough or as you put it "no longer the case".
Or mb you are talking about the part when you are making an argument about balancing around upkeep and not around unit to unit interaction as a whole.

I am not even talking about balancing on looks suggestion, 'cause that does sound like a joke but you are saying that it is "another reason" when it is not a serious reason at all.
Also your language skills are clearly good enough so why are you bringing this all of a sudden, like c'mon dude.


Besides Mythics just got a blanket buff around WoW release, they absolutely don't need another blanket buff again. Some could still get a look, but those should be on an individual basis (that what should have happened instead of what was done). You mentioned Shrine btw, that thing don't need a buff in any shape or form. More Mythics should be pushed in the direction of how the Shrine is designed or something similar tho.

Sorry but you just twists my words and talk nonsence.
I'll make one last effort to say it again but i'm afraid you are the type of person that keeps bs for the sake of winning arguments and i'm not interested in that type of penis measuring.

Units must be balanced around tiers because they exist in a tier system. Units right now are balanced around tiers. for example all t4 have exactly 7 status resistance because they are t4.
Secondlty the rock paper scisor of shock-pike-shield doesn't really work early game and late it bears no real impact. it was very good in aow3 but here it's dilluted it's not that strong for the counter to be felt.

The real thing that matters in this game is enchantments and tier. You can put enchamtnets on all non-mythic units so from the start when you look for the best you cut mythics.
then what separates enchanted units is racials so the second big separation is racial. So non-racial units are also cutted from the roster.

To separate even more you go for the biggest tier of non-mythic racial. => that's how you get the templar beeing the best unit in the game.

If they are stated including cost wise and upkeep by tier then the benefit of tier should be more important then who gets the most buffs.

There is no unit interaction happening. Templars beat everything including t4 racial shock units like the war breed. So a pike beats a shock. War breed with enchants and racial transformations beats golden golem. So a shock beats a pike(mythic) because why??? So type of unit is not important only who can get buffs and transformations.

Secondly this type of unit interactions should not be too harsh. You dont want t1 pike beating t4 cavalary that would again be dumb. If you pay so much gold and imperium it's dumb to loose to t1 pike. So rock - paper - scisor should matter more but not that much in theory. In practice it's only a thing in very early game then it dissapears completly.

Also the reason why everyone goes astral -shadow is for bizzard + flash freeze to give you -8 status resistance and then you are screwed.
More tomes also means more buffs to stack so this problem will just be more and more prevalent. heck it already is!

 

[Codyksp]

What would you think T4 range will look like? Cody was saying Ironclads are being used to some success in MP and those are essentially T5 range units.

I assume you meant to say T4 at the end. Ironclad was conceptualized as a T4 Ranged unit according to the devs.

I don't think 3 is going away at all, but who knows.

That's fine. This is an even larger weakness for Battle Mages, who depend heavily on their AoE attacks.

4 just makes Guided Projectile mandatory, no?

Not really. It does make Keen-Sighted mandatory though. Tome of Scrying is just far too horrible to include.
Secondary attacks for Zephyr Archer, Peacebringer and Longbow also have Always Hits.

5 is most likely from devs being afraid repeating what was around release.

Well, we are 2 years down the road. Since then Triumph has murdered Ranged T3s with power creep.
Another very big blow to that unit class is the removal of +1 Affinity point from Signature Skills.

Even today, Ranged units still heavily favour going full rainbow to even be 50% functional at all.
Another large reason why they fail to work is the horrible selection of T2, T3 and T4 tomes for them.

Astral has Amplifiction, unless you literally just transition into Stormbringers at T4.
Scrying is like an identity confused tome. It tries to do 3 different things and fails at all.

• Nature has Roots, Glades and nothing in the later tiers.
• Shadow has Cryomancy and that's where the trail ends.
• Order has Zeal. Inquisition is a joke of a tome right now.
• Chaos has Pyromancy, maybe Horde, and Chaos Channeling.
• Materium has Rock, Winds and Crucible. Which are okay.
• Dual tomes have Discipline and Calamity at the moment.

Now. Here is the problem with all of these tomes. 7 of them are in T1, 2 in T2, and 3 in T4. Not a single useful T3 tome.
Why? Because Ranged units want to be paired up with Shield/Polearm units that can form a frontline guard for them.
But every single tome outside of Glades offers nothing of the sort without offering absolutely nothing else in the tome.
Cleansing Flame? Supports Melee/Magic. Supremacy? Supports Magic. Oh, that's the end of T4 Shield/Polearm units lol.

Now imagine I would take one of those tomes anyway. I also want an early game and a mid game frontline (T1 and T3).
How am I going to gather enchantments/transformations/units while having the affinity required to obtain them all?

Battle Mages have a far, far, faaaar easier time pathing into 2 units. This is why they are actually somewhat viable now.
Shock units suffer from absolutely 0 support in T4 tomes. Unless you like going Prosperity/Calamity every single game.
Skirmishers have a free game and find it difficult to even make a wrong choice, since they double dip into melee/ranged.

And to be clear, you cannot mix Ranged+Shock, it's horrible. Just like you don't mix Skirmishers with other unit types.
Ranged (and Battle Mage) can only be played with Shield/Polearm/Support. They're the only semi-decent composition.
Skirmishers run solo and Shock units do the same. These unit types have absolutely no synergistic characteristics at all.

Maybe more Fighter units would be nice, they could also function as a "generalist" frontline unit class.

At the end of the day we just suffer from lack of T4 units. It's been repeated so many times by now.
And the only "solution" Triumph keeps pushing is new tomes. Which do not solve it in the right way.

 

[Kitschy]

Sorry but you just twists my words and talk nonsence.
I'll make one last effort to say it again but i'm afraid you are the type of person that keeps bs for the sake of winning arguments and i'm not interested in that type of penis measuring.

Units must be balanced around tiers because they exist in a tier system. Units right now are balanced around tiers. for example all t4 have exactly 7 status resistance because they are t4.
Secondlty the rock paper scisor of shock-pike-shield doesn't really work early game and late it bears no real impact. it was very good in aow3 but here it's dilluted it's not that strong for the counter to be felt.

The real thing that matters in this game is enchantments and tier. You can put enchamtnets on all non-mythic units so from the start when you look for the best you cut mythics.
then what separates enchanted units is racials so the second big separation is racial. So non-racial units are also cutted from the roster.

To separate even more you go for the biggest tier of non-mythic racial. => that's how you get the templar beeing the best unit in the game.

If they are stated including cost wise and upkeep by tier then the benefit of tier should be more important then who gets the most buffs.

There is no unit interaction happening. Templars beat everything including t4 racial shock units like the war breed. So a pike beats a shock. War breed with enchants and racial transformations beats golden golem. So a shock beats a pike(mythic) because why??? So type of unit is not important only who can get buffs and transformations.

Secondly this type of unit interactions should not be too harsh. You dont want t1 pike beating t4 cavalary that would again be dumb. If you pay so much gold and imperium it's dumb to loose to t1 pike. So rock - paper - scisor should matter more but not that much in theory. In practice it's only a thing in very early game then it dissapears completly.

Also the reason why everyone goes astral -shadow is for bizzard + flash freeze to give you -8 status resistance and then you are screwed.
More tomes also means more buffs to stack so this problem will just be more and more prevalent. heck it already is!

You don't have to make disagreement personal and resort to name calling, this does not make your points stronger. No need to declare what type of person you think you are or you aren't too, that's outside the scope of our discussion.

There are different ways of balancing tier system.
"Units must be balanced around tiers because they exist in a tier system" is a tautology statement that is meaningless. You can either balance tier system vertically or horizontally, both have their pros and cons. Horizontal is better when it comes to unit variety but is harder to maintain, when vertical is easy to maintain but is abysmal when it comes to unit variety. (or you can have a hybrid system of two btw)

Counter system works best early game and then it becomes more out of whack the more enchantments are stacked. Enchantments stacking is the big contributing factor in this, it would be a lot easier to whip it into shape if there is some sort of a ceiling that can be balanced against.

Why "benefit of tier should be more important who gets the most buffs", when tier already adds stats and active/passive abilities. You basically want to buff things more that already come pre-equipped, this will lead to tier creep even more than it is now and in turn it will diminish the choice of units even further making combat as one dimensional as it can be. Especially if we are talking about Mythics, what that would do is move the problem that we now have with T4s to T5s but the problem would still remain.

How harsh counter system should or should not be is very debatable and depends on how low tiers are handled in the first place. I do have to say bringing paper vs scissors and expecting for it to win 'cause it is gilded paper is kinda silly tho.

And your last point, now imagine not needing to use Blizzard + Flash Freeze 'cause units already have nonexistent Status Res. (that is one of the disadvantages of low tiers) Besides look at how tier design is permeated throughout the game from culture army roster to Empire skill tree (talking about Rite skills) to army summon spells from high tier tomes (Golden Horde, Undead Army, Awaken Forest, etc). Low tiers were designed to be at least somewhat useful from start to finish.

I assume you meant to say T4 at the end. Ironclad was conceptualized as a T4 Ranged unit according to the devs.

Yeap, my bad there. My point was we probably know or can guess how they would look based on Ironclad.

Skirmishers have a free game and find it difficult to even make a wrong choice, since they double dip into melee/ranged.

Did devs acknowledge that Skirmishers double dipping and this is causing problems?

 

[Codyksp]

Did devs acknowledge that Skirmishers double dipping and this is causing problems?

I meant double dipping as in getting Melee + Ranged enchantments from a single tome.
But they did make, for example, Throw Storm Trident not have the Single Shot tag.

Skirmishers aren't problematic power wise right now, they are just a boring mono stack class.

 

[aerothgow]

You don't have to make disagreement personal and resort to name calling, this does not make your points stronger. No need to declare what type of person you think you are or you aren't too, that's outside the scope of our discussion.


Why "benefit of tier should be more important who gets the most buffs", when tier already adds stats and active/passive abilities. You basically want to buff things more that already come pre-equipped, this will lead to tier creep even more than it is now and in turn it will diminish the choice of units even further making combat as one dimensional as it can be. Especially if we are talking about Mythics, what that would do is move the problem that we now have with T4s to T5s but the problem would still remain.

What name calling ? Are you dreaming?

Secondly. Again no. Reason is that at t5 they are all mythic non- racial and they separated by the echantments you pick not by what class of unit they are.
The difference between golden golem and shrine will be on different enchantments. So only 1 layer of things to show who is stronger and that you can balance with numbers.
When you have so many layers racial. type of unit, tier you cannot balance so many units with so many enchantments and so many transformation. it's too many layers of complexity to ever balance. When you even have more content to come out you can't keep up with this balance.

And we can go even further. Limited number of enchants and racial transformations can also trim down the number of variables to better balance units and buffs. And then you can make more viable units especialy bringing t4 into line with what they should be.

Tier creep should be a thing. It's called technology rush and it's a tactic in all strategy games. having t4 rule over t5 it's an anomaly and it's should not be like this.

 

[Nevars]

It's more about letting the culture you picked at the start of the game continue to mean something to your army comp instead of being totally blown out by tome units.

And why would that be preferable?

What unit should be stronger?

The one that required research to unlock them or the default unit that unlock automatically as you progress?

Imo lategame Tome unit should be better than lategame cultural unit.

Anyway your culture is still relevant to your army through culture specific ability such as melee bonus dmg against unit with Weakened/range inflicting Weakened from Dark culture, Awakening from High culture, etc.

 

[seperamos]

Enchantments and transformations are supposed to keep culture units up to the task of taking on t4s and t5s. Not 1 on 1, but with teamwork and rosters that emphasize cultural attributes.

T4s and t5s need their own system to maintain power scale. Idk if enchants or transformations should be their system.

 

[aerothgow]

And why would that be preferable?

What unit should be stronger?

The one that required research to unlock them or the default unit that unlock automatically as you progress?

Imo lategame Tome unit should be better than lategame cultural unit.

Anyway your culture is still relevant to your army through culture specific ability such as melee bonus dmg against unit with Weakened/range inflicting Weakened from Dark culture, Awakening from High culture, etc.

Really disagree.

Faction choices should matter at least as much as tome choices. Right now faction choice is only for early game. Mid game and late game faction units rarely matter and that's not ok either because faction option and choices are a big part of the game.

 

[GloatingSwine]

And why would that be preferable?

Because a significant part of the fantasy the game asks us to engage in is faction creation, with each one supposedly embodying different themes and styles of play, all of which get wholly deleted if they can't provide a unit relevant to the late game.

And no, one barely relevant battle effect like a damage bonus vs. weakened does not mean your culture is present in the lategame.

Culture should be a meaningful choice beyond "does this have good autoresolve before turn 20?"

 

[Jolly Joker]

That's where the game concept is a failure. If you have culture unit "relevant" in end game, the way the game works right now (and right now is two years) you don't need anything else, because you don't need to pick affinity points anymore for a "relevant" tome unit - nor tomes you wouldn't pick without a need for the specific unit in it.

Maybe, just MAYBE this could change by making the individual tomes less of a hodgepodge collection of this and that and instead have a few that give you specific units and stuff that helps them (and not necessarily enchantments).

 

[Kitschy]

What name calling ? Are you dreaming?

Secondly. Again no. Reason is that at t5 they are all mythic non- racial and they separated by the echantments you pick not by what class of unit they are.
The difference between golden golem and shrine will be on different enchantments. So only 1 layer of things to show who is stronger and that you can balance with numbers.
When you have so many layers racial. type of unit, tier you cannot balance so many units with so many enchantments and so many transformation. it's too many layers of complexity to ever balance. When you even have more content to come out you can't keep up with this balance.

And we can go even further. Limited number of enchants and racial transformations can also trim down the number of variables to better balance units and buffs. And then you can make more viable units especialy bringing t4 into line with what they should be.

Tier creep should be a thing. It's called technology rush and it's a tactic in all strategy games. having t4 rule over t5 it's an anomaly and it's should not be like this.

You started to throw around "this/that type of person" and made it personal, even tried to do some impotent virtue signalling revolving around yourself. Now trying to frame the start of you post as "your dreaming". If you want to continue in this key you can, it is not like I can stop you from doing that but that will not make your argument stronger.

Now to the topic.
What that will lead to is you will see only stacks of T5s as a result in the end, meaning 2/3 (mb even more actually) of units will become obsolete. High tier spam will be as the only option of playing the game, not an option but the option. Atm T4 problem are predominantly MP one, with SP you can do roughly whatever you like 'cause AI even on brutal plays like a gentleman but the more vertical rigidity will be pushed the more of problem it will become for SP. Not because AI will become better or anything like that, but because the system itself won't allow for any other way of playing the game.
This also removes dimensions from combat 'cause composition and unit positioning will take a back seat and allow tier to be the dominant factor. Fights will be even more predetermined by tier of a unit and not by strategy being deployed. Essentially you will have less strategy in a strategy game, there is nothing positive about that imo.
Also what will be the purpose of T4/T5 tomes with low tier armies in them, like previously mentioned Golden Horde, Undead Army, Awaken Forest, etc. Again this will just cause problems on top of other problems.

Yeap, it is hard to balance without a cap but to be fair everything is harder to balance when there is no hard ceiling. I think that is the only thing we agree on, it was mentioned a page back I think.

You are using words as "what they should be" when it comes to T4s or T5s, but what that actually mean? Do you mean like dominating lower tiers without any meaningful challenge, 'cause if so then no I strongly disagree with that. It will make game considerably worse.

You are conflating tech rush with tier progression. You can have tech rush in a system with horizontal tier progression (or in a hybrid system for that matter) PF is prime example, game is a lot more horizontally balanced and tech rush is still a thing and high tiers are in a better place same as low tiers.
And regarding tech rush what do you think enchantment stacking on T4s is if not a tech rush strategy, what we have is a type of tech rush but it has no limit and revolves around racial T4s.

 

[Nevars]

Because a significant part of the fantasy the game asks us to engage in is faction creation, with each one supposedly embodying different themes and styles of play, all of which get wholly deleted if they can't provide a unit relevant to the late game.

And no, one barely relevant battle effect like a damage bonus vs. weakened does not mean your culture is present in the lategame.

Culture should be a meaningful choice beyond "does this have good autoresolve before turn 20?"

Cultural unit being superior to late game tome just mean that the game turn into sitting on your lawn and just win.

Might as well just delete all tome unit from the game at that point.

Though I agree that Dark's Cull the Weak is ironically, weak but that's more an argument for buffing Dark.

 

[Goblin-Cookie]

Cultural unit being superior to late game tome just mean that the game turn into sitting on your lawn and just win.

Might as well just delete all tome unit from the game at that point.

Though I agree that Dark's Cull the Weak is ironically, weak but that's more an argument for buffing Dark.

I feel that dark is an early-game rush faction and this might not be a bad thing.

That we are talking in absolute terms as to what units are *better* or *worse* means we have a problem already.

You can win against doomstacks by attacking in multiple waves, fleeing once you inevitably lose each battle to save your leading heroes (and a few lucky units) as best you can. I feel the AI should be trained to think better in terms of waves, that is to attempt to inflict heavy losses on the more powerful stack-trio before retreating with its heroes and beginning another assault immediately with another three armies.

 

[Codyksp]

That's where the game concept is a failure. If you have culture unit "relevant" in end game, the way the game works right now (and right now is two years) you don't need anything else, because you don't need to pick affinity points anymore for a "relevant" tome unit - nor tomes you wouldn't pick without a need for the specific unit in it.

It works like this because mono-stacking is the name of the game, as this thread has been discussing for 60 pages now.
The cause is a failure to implement unit class counters and a failure to place a cap on (racial) unit power scaling.

If we had an enchantment/transformation limit then there would be a "goalpost" for the maximum power obtainable.
From here, you can begin to balance other aspects around this limit. Such as Mythic units, Hero power and unit counters.
Then you have to decide how strong a counter should be. Should a T2 Polearm beat a T3 Shock unit when both are baseline?
Should this T2 Polearm also beat them when the T3 Shock unit is enchanted/transformed? How powerful should counters be?

Once all of this has been properly balanced, you will start making choices between a unit or an enchantment from your tomes.
Whereas currently you only care about picking 1 unit class at the highest possible tier and stacking it to the absolute maximum.

In the current state of the game nothing works as designed because the devs seemingly refuse to accept the reality of the situation.

Maybe, just MAYBE this could change by making the individual tomes less of a hodgepodge collection of this and that and instead have a few that give you specific units and stuff that helps them (and not necessarily enchantments).

Most tomes aren't in that bad of a shape, either way nothing like this should be done imo until the base design is fixed first.

I feel that dark is an early-game rush faction and this might not be a bad thing.

Disagree. They have nothing empowering them to be strong early game compared to other cultures.
Their economy is non-existent. Their units are of average power and their combat passive is weak.

I'd take a 1v1 with any other culture vs Dark and guarantee I'll win every time. They have no benefits.

You can win against doomstacks by attacking in multiple waves, fleeing once you inevitably lose each battle to save your leading heroes (and a few lucky units) as best you can. I feel the AI should be trained to think better in terms of waves, that is to attempt to inflict heavy losses on the more powerful stack-trio before retreating with its heroes and beginning another assault immediately with another three armies.

When playing versus the AI, sure. That's the only time "horde tactics" can potentially work. This is absolutely not the case in multiplayer.
Fights are so unbalanced that generally speaking they end 18v3, it is extremely rare for a fight to go somewhat even between players.
And this is when both players bring the same level of units. If they bring weak "chaff" then they will get absolutely wiped every time.

Example from yesterday (spoiler, Wyverns still suck). The player piloting the Wyverns is the best player I know of.
He even tried to "abuse" Draconic Rage by attacking his own units and then healing them back to full HP after.
Also the player on the left received Spider Mounts and Demon Step from the shop. Winning thanks to RNG imbalance.

 

[Kitschy]

It works like this because mono-stacking is the name of the game, as this thread has been discussing for 60 pages now.
The cause is a failure to implement unit class counters and a failure to place a cap on (racial) unit power scaling.
...

Btw did they give any reason why in the end unlimited system was chosen?

 

[Codyksp]

Btw did they give any reason why in the end unlimited system was chosen?

Nothing I can specifically remember other than "freedom of choice" and "faction evolution".
Which both don't inherently require not having a limit be present if you ask me personally.