Poll

Changes you would like to see tried (hypothetically):

Yes to Lust mana cost increase
5 (16.7%)
Yes to Heal mana cost decrease
5 (16.7%)
Yes to Troll regen increase
3 (10%)
Yes to Skeletons cost decrease
3 (10%)
Yes to Unholy armor cost decrease
3 (10%)
Yes to Firebolt cost decrease
4 (13.3%)
Yes to Flameshield cost decrease
3 (10%)
Yes to Polymorph slight cost decrease
4 (13.3%)

Total Members Voted: 7

Author Topic: Lets talk combat edition, spells a and balance!  (Read 18655 times)

Offline Cel

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Re: Lets talk combat edition, spells a and balance!
« Reply #45 on: November 13, 2018, 12:05:26 AM »
Well gold,  research time, or mana cost reduction are things we can change without changing the design of the spell nor the logic behind it but changing what it does is not something I would want it really is not what the spell is supposed to do.

I think if we make it a little stronger and cheaper it is enough to make it a good spell against dks, situational yes, but most spells are.

Ogres certainly do not have a way to one shot mages at such a range I believe just tweaking numbers should be enough here.

Though I strongly believe if we make lust cost a lot more mana and heal a lot less it may already fix a lot of balance problems between orcs and humans and also within the orc tech tree.
 :thumbsup:

Offline Winchester

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Re: Lets talk combat edition, spells a and balance!
« Reply #46 on: November 13, 2018, 05:16:24 AM »
Ogres certainly do not have a way to one shot mages at such a range

placing runes on a typical path can kill even an invisible mage. And you can force the mages to take that path by continously walling off entry spots (s12 to 11 on gow for example, followed by the s12 to 9 spot, leaving only middle as the path to come from to reach 11, as you can put the farm at the top of s9 too )  Granted it's not a technical 1 shot kill, the odds of them stepping on another in a tight space is pretty high. It takes 2/5 of the runes to kill. so it can technically kill multiple mages in a single cast. And the odds of you microing a mage back after just stepping on nicely placed runes requires a very slow game speed.


Other then that your point on the Exorcism is fine, gold cost or mana cost reduction is fine. A mana cost reduction will allow you to 1 shot a death knight after spotting it with Holy Vision with the same paladin.

Offline Lambchops

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Re: Lets talk combat edition, spells a and balance!
« Reply #47 on: November 13, 2018, 06:47:48 AM »
After running a few more tests last night, I must admit its starting to look like d&d does more damage to gts than blizz, and blizz does more damage to rax than d&d. Maybe the 2x2 - 3x3 thing is true. Not what I expected, but thats what the results seem to say. Got to be scientific about it.

Any thoughts on the difference between multicast d&d/blizz targeting a building and targeting the ground?

Here's the thing:

If you multi-select 9 mages or dks then target a building with blizz/d&d they all cast in exactly the same spot - the AOE is a perfect square, but if you target the ground *usually* they all cast at slightly different spots so the total AOE is more spread out.

BUT (and I have no idea why) if you put your 9 mages (or dks) in a straight line, either vertical or horizontal then multi-select and cast at the ground, they will all cast at the same spot as if you targeted a building.

This works out the same using either of the 2 multi-cast methods. It's weird  ???


The difference in effect is quite marked.   Thoughts? ???

-- edit --

this even works if they are in a diagonal line, but as soon as they are clumped together then they start targeting a random spot.


« Last Edit: November 13, 2018, 07:14:19 AM by Lambchops »
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Offline Cel

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Re: Lets talk combat edition, spells a and balance!
« Reply #48 on: November 13, 2018, 01:52:33 PM »
So I did some more testing and set the life of ogres and farms to 1000 to be able to make a full blizzard and full d&d without units dying at the first two casts thus getting a better average because more casts of blizzard within each tests.

So far the "myth" holds odd number of tiles = more damage from blizzard even = more damage from d&d
the bigger the units the smaller the difference though.

Ogres take more damage from blizzard than d&d though it is worth mentionning that neither survives being directly under 1 cast of d&d or blizzard but it does mean that a unit running through has more chances to survive if it is d&d than if it is blizzard so yeah go humans on that part.

On farms the damage difference is consistent as dks will often even kill a farm where mages will mostly get them in yellow and red on rare occasions (1000hp farms) this one did seem pretty obvious though when trying with the 400hp default life of farms that noticeably d&d killed more farms than blizzard on average also because blizzard damages were more spread. So on that part yeah go Orcs.

On barracks there is a slight advantage for blizzard it seems but it is smaller than the one d&d has on farms and much much smaller than the one blizzard has on units.

On halls the advantage is for d&d but at this point it seems it is not at a big degree of difference and we would need a very big sample to get the exact difference.

Boats and dragons are 2x2 in size and they evolve on a different grid so I would definitely try them next because I am now very curious it could very well be that d&d is better for these if they count as 2x2 in size but it could be possible that blizzard deals more damage to them because they are units.

Oil platforms are in fact 3x3 in size but just like the boats and air, so far any difference between the two is hardly noticeable even with 1000 hp each, both spells seem to perform exactly the same on these, I do not have a big sample but I can already tell the difference if there is one is not as visible as the one that exist on farms and units.

Yeah @Lambchops I noticed that both spells have that weird behavior when multi-casting I am also pretty sure it works the same for other spells like runes tornado and even attack ground if I am not mistaking which is very handy :thumbsup:

Yes @Winchester I can agree that rune has more range of utility and is arguably a better spell at the moment, all things can be balanced by tweaking values and thus keeping the game mechanics intact though. There is value to this approach we all love these iconic spells and what they can do how they look like, if we can manage to make them all worth using without changing that we are doing things right.

I think people really love exorcism, heal, skeletons and flameshield these are very cool spells we only need to make them a little more worth it, and make spells that are a bit too op a little bit less.

All so that in the end we get to see everything used more often depending on different situations, players using lust to burst down defenses or win with short skirmishes or getting runes to get more map control and adopt a more defensive approach these type of things not just going lust for the simple reason that it is that much better than everything else. ;)

Offline woofy

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Re: Lets talk combat edition, spells a and balance!
« Reply #49 on: November 13, 2018, 02:20:54 PM »
I think Exorcism being able to hit Ogre Mages could be interesting.

Exorcism nullifying OM mana, or unlusting units would be awesome

Offline Cel

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Re: Lets talk combat edition, spells a and balance!
« Reply #50 on: November 13, 2018, 03:57:52 PM »
I think Exorcism being able to hit Ogre Mages could be interesting.

Exorcism nullifying OM mana, or unlusting units would be awesome

Except that wouldn't be exorcism anymore we might as well rename it dispel at this point.

I mean one could argue it may be fun to have skeletons as the primary spell for death knights, a strong shield instead of a heal for paladins or haste and why not summon demons for axe throwers instead of trolls regeneration and divine intervention for mages so that they can revive units. Soon enough that would not be anything like war2 anymore we can achieve balance without changing the mechanics nor the way the game works.

I created that post because I saw a lot of people talking about balancing things but really they mostly suggest we change the game. Warcraft 2 is a game that first is not badly designed, second is not that badly balanced either, and third which remaining success relies primarily on nostalgia.

People come back to the game that they remember and loved, almost every old player remembers paladins have heal and exorcism it is iconic they love these spells they remember what you could use it for, most people remember heal as being good because if felt good throughout the campaign,  most of them didn't ever use lust as efficiently as we do.

Almost none of them remembers exactly how much heal was able to heal and how much mana it cost, they certainly don't remember how powerful exorcism was and how much mana it cost. Players tend to have a memory bias they remember the game as being more balanced than it really is but they do remember very well what spells are and what they were used for.

People want to play the game they remember they come back for these cool mechanics, if it happens to be more balanced that is very good because either they wont remember or they will welcome the change because it will still be war2 but if it feels different that is where you start to loose people big time.

That is why here I am talking balance changes, and numbers tweaking, not mechanics changes or re-design (except for heal not having cap to behave like exorcism because that people wont remember and as mentioned before it should always have been the case).


« Last Edit: November 13, 2018, 04:06:11 PM by Cel »

Offline woofy

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Re: Lets talk combat edition, spells a and balance!
« Reply #51 on: November 13, 2018, 04:42:40 PM »
I think Exorcism being able to hit Ogre Mages could be interesting.

Exorcism nullifying OM mana, or unlusting units would be awesome

Except that wouldn't be exorcism anymore we might as well rename it dispel at this point.

I mean one could argue it may be fun to have skeletons as the primary spell for death knights, a strong shield instead of a heal for paladins or haste and why not summon demons for axe throwers instead of trolls regeneration and divine intervention for mages so that they can revive units. Soon enough that would not be anything like war2 anymore we can achieve balance without changing the mechanics nor the way the game works.

I created that post because I saw a lot of people talking about balancing things but really they mostly suggest we change the game. Warcraft 2 is a game that first is not badly designed, second is not that badly balanced either, and third which remaining success relies primarily on nostalgia.

People come back to the game that they remember and loved, almost every old player remembers paladins have heal and exorcism it is iconic they love these spells they remember what you could use it for, most people remember heal as being good because if felt good throughout the campaign,  most of them didn't ever use lust as efficiently as we do.

Almost none of them remembers exactly how much heal was able to heal and how much mana it cost, they certainly don't remember how powerful exorcism was and how much mana it cost. Players tend to have a memory bias they remember the game as being more balanced than it really is but they do remember very well what spells are and what they were used for.

People want to play the game they remember they come back for these cool mechanics, if it happens to be more balanced that is very good because either they wont remember or they will welcome the change because it will still be war2 but if it feels different that is where you start to loose people big time.

That is why here I am talking balance changes, and numbers tweaking, not mechanics changes or re-design (except for heal not having cap to behave like exorcism because that people wont remember and as mentioned before it should always have been the case).




I think Exorcism being able to hit Ogre Mages could be interesting.

Exorcism nullifying OM mana, or unlusting units would be awesome

Offline shesycompany

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Re: Lets talk combat edition, spells a and balance!
« Reply #52 on: November 13, 2018, 07:09:26 PM »
just take away castle stage all together.

Offline Cel

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Re: Lets talk combat edition, spells a and balance!
« Reply #53 on: November 13, 2018, 11:37:18 PM »
just take away castle stage all together.

I laughed  :thumbsup:

Offline shesycompany

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Re: Lets talk combat edition, spells a and balance!
« Reply #54 on: November 13, 2018, 11:50:44 PM »
 ;D but what we are wanting to find is the "this spell can cast without a unit" stuff and make heal cast..then work to find how to make it target a unit like exo...is it possible idk

Offline Lambchops

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Re: Lets talk combat edition, spells a and balance!
« Reply #55 on: November 14, 2018, 06:06:08 AM »
;D but what we are wanting to find is the "this spell can cast without a unit" stuff and make heal cast..then work to find how to make it target a unit like exo...is it possible idk

no idea, but I agree that would be a cool mod.
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Offline Zelya

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Re: Lets talk combat edition, spells a and balance!
« Reply #56 on: November 14, 2018, 11:05:26 AM »
So, lets compare D&D and blizzard

The basic mechanism is very similar.
Each D&D cast (25 of mana) generates 5 bullets in 5x5 tiles area with basic damage 5-10. Each bullet hit targets 10 times.
Each blizzard cast (25 of mana) generates 5 bullets in 5x5 tiles area with the same basic damage 5-10. Each bullet hit target only once, but it will be recreated 10 times.

The first important thing:
When the game calculates real damage, it take into account the distance between bullet and unit(structure) in pixels.Please note, the this is the real center point of an unit/structure in pixels. And the distance = max(distanceX, distanceY).

If distance*distance > 511 damage will be 2-4 (~22px)
If distance*distance > 1791 damage will be 0 (~42px)

But you can't hit target out of 7x7 tiles square. And one bullet can't hit the same target several times per one game cycle.

Also blizzard needs time for "falling" animation before hitting target, but we'll ignore this. We won`t calculate damage-per-second now.


There are two main differences in D&D and Blizzard bullets generation.
1. D&D bullets are static. And they are always placed into the left-upper corner of the tile.
    Blizzard bullets start moving with offset -110px by X -170px by Y and with step multiple of 12 px.  Also additional starting position offset +11px/-11px can be applied. So, the distance values are more randomized.

2. Blizzard ignores target unit/structure. It takes into account only direct X and Y map coordinates to setup 5x5 generation area.
   D&D pays attention to target position. So, it can be lower/upper corner of the building, and all the 5x5 area will be shifted.


May be I've missed something, but I'm too lazy to check again.

Now you can try to calculate which magic is more preferable in different situations.