Beta4 Bonus System Question

[magian]

I agree with KGB on this. Although I think that Fear and Chaos should be capped at -5 each (after reducing morale and command respectively). This would allow a fear and chaos heavy stack to impose a -10 maximum. Although an individual unit shouldn't be reduced to less than 5 strength.

I also agree that implementing a system of bonuses like this would make negate abilities superfluous.

I could get behind a 'mindless' trait. 0_o With a mindless unit being unaffected by any bonuses or minuses.

[LichKing]

I'm too accustomed with Warlords 2 and I never played DLR, so for me it's natural to think in the terms of W2. I don't really know what's better, but I think what you propose is radically different from the current rules. From my part, I like negate bonus (archons/devils) for the reasons I explained. Chaos can be devastating at high levels, but I never saw an hero with more than 10 Chaos, since leveling is a bit harder than before. And Archons can negate that, I don't see the balance problem.

I agree we need a cap on the negative values of the current bonus's to distinguish them. However that cap has to be applied 'to the bonus first' and then 'to the stack' second.

Then it would be useless to have DK with Chaos of more than 5, because it would be always capped t 5.
I don't see the need of capping it on the bonus. In your first example, a DK with Chaos 12 should be able to block Dragon's morale entirely. The cap should act only on the base strength value, that is on units without bonus, or whose bonus has already been negated (by catapults for example).

To make fear and Chaos not stackable would help to avoid too strong stacks from the beginning, since fear can't go over 5, and Chaos could be capped at 10 (now already a Yeti and a 1st-level DK give -6). I'd still like to have higher Chaos to negate bonuses, and having the -10 cap only applied on the unit's base value (btw it's a long way before the DK can reach more than 10 Chaos).

To make it less strong, you could make DK's Chaos start at 3, and progress by 3 every 20 points, up to 15. That's my opinion though, I doubt I'll change it radically, because I like Negate Bonus and the current system, and I'm biased towards Warlords 2, evidently.

I could get behind a 'mindless' trait. 0_o With a mindless unit being unaffected by any bonuses or minuses.

That's actually an interesting idea...

[KGB]

Magican,

I agree with KGB on this. Although I think that Fear and Chaos should be capped at -5 each (after reducing morale and command respectively). This would allow a fear and chaos heavy stack to impose a -10 maximum. Although an individual unit shouldn't be reduced to less than 5 strength.

The problem is -10 is REALLY REALLY powerful. For example a 3 strength unit gets reduced to 1. Against another 3 strength unit it's now (3v1) or 3x as strong. An equivalent positive bonus would be +60 so that you'd get (9v3) to be 3x as strong! That's why negative values have to be capped really low. -5 should be the cap in the negative direction.


LichKing,

I'm too accustomed with Warlords 2 and I never played DLR, so for me it's natural to think in the terms of W2. I don't really know what's better, but I think what you propose is radically different from the current rules. From my part, I like negate bonus (archons/devils) for the reasons I explained. Chaos can be devastating at high levels, but I never saw an hero with more than 10 Chaos, since leveling is a bit harder than before. And Archons can negate that, I don't see the balance problem.

It's not a balance problem as much as it makes the bonus system needlessly complicated by having 2 different positive/negative bonus's AND 2 different Negates. Especially since all the bonus's are basically one and the same since you can freely substitute one for the other.

Then it would be useless to have DK with Chaos of more than 5, because it would be always capped t 5.
I don't see the need of capping it on the bonus. In your first example, a DK with Chaos 12 should be able to block Dragon's morale entirely. The cap should act only on the base strength value, that is on units without bonus, or whose bonus has already been negated (by catapults for example).

Not quite. It would be useful against Paladin/Valkyrie hero stacks since they would have positive command bonus's that would be negated by Chaos. This is why I suggested that heroes can build both Chaos and Leadership for different amounts of points (how DLR handled it).

To make fear and Chaos not stackable would help to avoid too strong stacks from the beginning, since fear can't go over 5, and Chaos could be capped at 10 (now already a Yeti and a 1st-level DK give -6). I'd still like to have higher Chaos to negate bonuses, and having the -10 cap only applied on the unit's base value (btw it's a long way before the DK can reach more than 10 Chaos).

Personally I see NO reason for the current Chaos bonus to exist if Negate is remaining. Just replace Chaos with Fear for the DK. Then the Devil can 'Negate' the DK Fear and the Archons can negate Paladin/Valkyrie positive bonus's. Then there is no stacking between the DK and Yeti/Medusa/Devil and other units like Kraken so there is no need to worry about how the stacking gets too strong at low levels (which it clearly does).

That and the -5 cap would solve all the problems of the bonus's being substituted for each other. Because I see Morale/Fear and Leadership/Chaos as being distinct, not the same bonus. In other words, Morale/Fear is like a Hammer and Nail and Leadership/Chaos is like a Screwdriver and Screw. Sure, if you don't have a screwdriver you can use a hammer to pound a screw into a board/wall but its not near as effective as having the screwdriver (hence the reason to cap each at -5). But under the current rules a Hammer is every bit as useful as a Screwdriver for putting screws into a wall/board.

As it is now the stacking and the over complication and free substitution is making a mess of the system. And incidentally, the current system is nothing like Warlords 2 anymore other than the Negate skill which doesn't even function like Negate since it doesn't completely remove the bonus, only part of it.

KGB

[LichKing]

The problem is -10 is REALLY REALLY powerful. For example a 3 strength unit gets reduced to 1. Against another 3 strength unit it's now (3v1) or 3x as strong. An equivalent positive bonus would be +60 so that you'd get (9v3) to be 3x as strong! That's why negative values have to be capped really low. -5 should be the cap in the negative direction.

Right, so -5 would be adequate.

Not quite. It would be useful against Paladin/Valkyrie hero stacks since they would have positive command bonus's that would be negated by Chaos. This is why I suggested that heroes can build both Chaos and Leadership for different amounts of points (how DLR handled it).

If you extend this also to morale, I'm for it, if the DK can block only heroes, like an archon, no. Chaos should be more expensive and the starting value maybe reduced, but it should act against everything, or it wouldn't be worth to spend points in it, imo.

Personally I see NO reason for the current Chaos bonus to exist if Negate is remaining. Just replace Chaos with Fear for the DK. Then the Devil can 'Negate' the DK Fear and the Archons can negate Paladin/Valkyrie positive bonus's. Then there is no stacking between the DK and Yeti/Medusa/Devil and other units like Kraken so there is no need to worry about how the stacking gets too strong at low levels (which it clearly does).

If DK had fear, then it would be ok for me in the sense that it would act on everything and not only on heroes (see above). But you don't need to abolish Chaos to do that, it can still be useful, given that Chaos and fear couldn't stack.

E.g. DK (Chaos 3) + Yeti (Fear 2) vs. Giant
In this case fear and chaos wouldn't stack, -3 would be the bonus.

DK (Chaos 3) + Yeti (Fear 2) vs. Giant + Archon
The Archon would block Chaos, but not Yeti's fear.

DK (Chaos 8) + Medusa (Fear 5) vs. Giant + Pegasus (Morale 5)
If Chaos and fear don't stack, negative bonus is -8. Chaos would act in full, negating Pegasus' +5 bonus, and 2nd stack would have a total penalty of -3 (still below -5 cap).

DK (Chaos 8) + Medusa (Fear 5) vs. Giant + Pegasus (Morale 5) + Archon
Chaos neutralized, fear and morale neutralize each other.

DK (Chaos 8) + Medusa (Fear 5) vs. Giant + Pegasus (Morale 5) + Archon + Devil (NegateNonHero)
Chaos and fear neutralized, +5 bonus for 2nd stack.

And so on, negate is still useful.

[LichKing]

On top of that, you can keep the Chaos cap on -5 also against walls. That is, wall wouldn't be a bonus like morale/leadership (against which Chaos greater than 5 would be effective), a wall strength 10 could be negated only by catapults.

E.g. DK (Chaos 10) vs. Giant (Wall 10)
Capped at -5, even if Giant has a +10 bonus, Giant fights at STR 30

DK (Chaos 10) vs. Dragon (Morale 10)
Chaos neutralizes morale

DK (Chaos 10) + Battering Ram vs. Giant (Wall 10)
Chaos capped at -5, battering ram cancels 5, Giant fights at STR 25

DK (Chaos 10) + Catapult vs. Giant (Wall 10)
Chaos capped at -5, Catapult cancels 10, Giant fights at STR 20

DK (Chaos 10) + Catapult vs. Giant (Wall 10) + Pegasus (Morale 5)
Chaos capped at -5 but blocks Pegasus morale, Catapult cancels 10, Giant and Pegasus fight at STR 20

That is, wall bonus would be immune to Chaos/Fear higher than 5.

[magian]

The problem is -10 is REALLY REALLY powerful. For example a 3 strength unit gets reduced to 1. Against another 3 strength unit it's now (3v1) or 3x as strong. An equivalent positive bonus would be +60 so that you'd get (9v3) to be 3x as strong! That's why negative values have to be capped really low. -5 should be the cap in the negative direction.

You are only looking at the worst case scenario here. By the same logic, +10 morale (or blessing and +5) is too powerful because strength 5 creatures become three times as powerful as other strength 5 creatures.

[Jeremy]

However the system is changed, it would be good if the end result was simple to understand. Issues like this can be unnecessarily complex for non-expert players.

[KGB]

LichKing,

Don't you find this kind of strange?

E.g. DK (Chaos 10) vs. Giant (Wall 10)
Capped at -5, even if Giant has a +10 bonus, Giant fights at STR 30

DK (Chaos 10) vs. Dragon (Morale 10)
Chaos neutralizes morale

You can substitute Chaos for Fear (to reduce Morale) but not for Siege (to reduce walls)? That would drive players crazier than ever trying to understand the bonus system.

Also I have another question for you. Can Fear substitute for Chaos against heroes or is Chaos the only *magic* bonus that can substitute for another bonus. Here's why I ask this question. Right now we are in Beta4, presumably there will be a Beta5,6,7 and so on. Once can also assume there will be new units added in the future. Now lets say in Beta5 I want to add a powerful undead unit like a Lich or maybe someone suggests to create a Gold Dragon and give the Gold Dragon +12 Morale and change the Red Dragon to +10 Fear (to keep with an AD&D theme). Now what happens with the +10 Fear? That's not unreasonable for a Dragon or a Lich. Can that be freely used to remove all the Command from a Paladin/Valkrie the way Chaos can or all +10 worth of Wall bonus? Because if it can do that, freely substitute then that +10 Fear bonus basically invalidates the Archon unit (why make an Archon with only hero +8 Negate and nothing else when you can make a +10 Fear unit that works against Heroes, Morale, Walls etc). See, looking ahead, what you want to allow (free substitution) ends up meaning we can't ever have a strong Fear unit in the future unless the bonus system is reworked entirely to prevent other units from becoming obsolete/useless. So rather than put Piranha through another rewrite I'd rather get the whole system right so that you can create units in the future without worrying about whether you wreck the entire system.

Or even now in Beta4, I was going to suggest the Kraken unit get +10 Fear in the water to make it truly powerful in the water (removing all morale and giving a -5 bonus when capped against anything but Dragons or high level heroes with lots of Leadership). But if Fear can substitute for Chaos then it would work against high level heroes in the water and that's not sure that's something I'd want it to do.

This is why I proposed each bonus be restricted to it's area and only carry over 5 points to another bonus. That way a +10 Fear unit could only remove 5 points of Leadership on a hero or 5 points of Wall bonus. The same with Chaos, it can only remove 5 Morale or 5 Wall bonus.

Now if you make this restriction, the DK still has value. He can now start at +4 Chaos and add +4 per upgrade so that he more than cancels the Paladin/Valkrie making him a true hero killer. At the same time he still gives -5 of his bonus against Morale/City walls in non-hero battles. That -5 is basically as good a +10 Leadership which means at L1 the DK is better than a L1 Paladin in non-hero battes and the Paladin would not become better in a non-hero battle until his bonus exceeded +10 (which can't happen until L7) and would never be better than the DK in a straight up fight since the DK would be the hero killer.

KGB

P.S. Incidentally, the Negate bonus still isn't needed. If for example you told me I could have the Devil as he is now (10 Negate) with +2 Fear or a KGBDevil with +10 Fear (capped at 5 in other categories) I'd take the KGBDevil every time. The -5 carry over into other categories (city walls, Leadership) is better and more versatile that being able to cancel 10 Morale and 10 Fear even if the regular Devil canceled mine in combat

[KGB]

You are only looking at the worst case scenario here. By the same logic, +10 morale (or blessing and +5) is too powerful because strength 5 creatures become three times as powerful as other strength 5 creatures.

Actually I am looking at the most common scenario. 80% of the units are 1 turn units with 10 or 15 or 20 strength. There are almost no 5 strength units (scout/bat) and certainly not made in masses.

The other thing to look at is how *easy* is it to produce -10 vs +20 or +25. A -10 can be produced by a L1 DK (4 chaos) + Medusa (5 fear) giving -9. A +25 bonus is only possible with a Dragon (+12) and a hero that has at least +13 command (L7+ hero). A +20 requires a Dragon and a hero with at least +8 (L5 Paladin, Valkryie attacking only at L3). It's vastly easier to produce a -10 than a +20 or +25.

Also a -10 forces the game to make another decision on bonus stacking. This time in case of terrain and anti-air.

For example, look at an Orc in a swamp. That Orc is 10 with a +10 terrain bonus. If that Orc faces a -10 bonus from Chaos/Fear would you expect:

1) 10+10-10=10
2)10-10=(5 min cap)+10=15

Or an Elf vs a flying unit. That Elf is 12 with a +10 flying bonus. If that Elf faces a -10 bonus from Chaos/Fear would you expect:

1) 12-10+10=12
2) 12-10=(5 min cap) + 10 = 15

I would expect the answer to be 2 in both cases since terrain bonus's and special bonus's like anti air aren't supposed to be affected by Chaos/Fear/Morale/Leadership (a Spider in a city can get as much as +35 bonus thanks to its +10 terrain bonus).

That might look confusing to players on the battle screen when they see the Orc with his 10+10-10=15 numbers

Incidentally, DLR went with an answer of 1 for example 1. This caused players to ask for something to help out weak units being slaughtered so anti-air was added and made to come after other bonus's to produce the answer of 2 for example 2. At that point, the only 1 turn units worth making were ones with anti-air and Assassination (first strike) because those were the only ones able to do anything after getting a -10 or -15 (in DLR's case) bonus applied against them. In reality DLR should just have fixed the answer to example 1 and capped negative bonus's to -5 instead of -15 (something many players have done on their own in custom games). If in fact Warbarons is going to allow negative numbers bigger than -5 (which I think it does right now) then I am going to have to beg for the Orc First Strike value to increase to 10 and Wolf Riders to 20 so that at least one weak unit has some value.

KGB

[kenc80]

wow this is complicated. Thanks guys for explaining it.

I do agree, the bonus system needs to be simplified.

I am not in favor of eliminating early game power allies. If someone gets early gold, why not reward them occasionally?


Ken