> > What I think is broken in the current setup is: > - Ghosts, especially the high levels, are too powerful against undead > and drakes. Wraiths are unstoppable, especially because they regain > sizable amounts of health when their damage is boosted, because > they're quite mobile and hard to hit, and because they even have a > ranged attack that the drakes are quite weak to, which makes it > difficult to use the only weapon the drakes have against them, fire, > to significant effect. They also have the opposite alignment of > drakes, are mobile enough to make it matter, and also are very > resistant to all saurians' attacks.
This is not as severe problem as it seems. First off, Ghosts do not get drain against the undead. This is a critical deficiency as taking retaliation damage does not get replaced by the increase power of the arcane attack. Moreover skeleton archers who are highly resistant to cold do very good damage against them, with little retaliation. Ghost on Ghost is very similar in outcome to the Horseman on Horseman. Actually if anything, horseman on horseman at day and dusk is far more volatile than Ghost on ghost at night, as they can kill each other with 2-2 at 40% defence, with greater mobility than a ghost. We might move to make it so that 3-3 does not mean a instant kill, but there is an obvious precedent for this. > - White Mages are playably balanced, but are too fragile; this is a > holdover from the days when they needed to be unusually fragile so > that the undead had any hope of stopping them. I suggest a sizable > increase in HP, with other nerfs (probably to damage) to keep things > even. Hasn't changed in years and a solid second line unit. Given its abilities to heal and its strong attack we think its weakness is warranted. Its not supposed to see front line combat, except maybe as a last resort. Also I always intended for the word Holy to remain in the attack of the white mage line instead of light beam. Since the path of piety allowed Clerics to tap into the arcane power, they would likely conceive of it as being a holy attack, so "holy beam" would make far more sense than "lightbeam." > - Dark Adepts, and even liches, are still largely powerless against > undead - this has never made sense, because they're supposed to be > the masters of them. You'd think someone with an intimate knowledge > of how to create said unlife would be equally apt at turning or > destroying it. (on that note - a "turn" ability for undead magi to > seize control of opponent's undead units would be very interesting). We've come up with an alternate scheme that will accommodate your concerns, as well as what we think to be a better balance than one we have now. We'll need to work on it, but essentially we're looking into creating a balance around the DA with an arcane and a cold attack. We do not want to change cold since it would seriously affect the balance vis-a-vis other factions, particularly the drakes. This would be akin to Dwarves having axes and hammers, with the latter only used against units weak against crush. > - The "drakes vs. undead" vulnerability circle is still there, and > this hinges largely on the presence of cold as the dark adept's > attack. Combat between these two is still too volatile, mostly from > the undead side. > This hasn't been a problem for the two years we've been balancing units. Its one of the most difficult match-ups in wesnoth, for sure, hinging critically on the day/night balance. Yes big damage swings do happen, but they are manageable and occur for both sides. Taking lots of damage is a necessary problem for a drake player: DAs at night are no more powerful than Spearman at day. Drake Fighters at day are excellent DA killers, with one almost killing a DA if need be, and having far greater mobility. But this has not been seen to be too volatile, and we do not see the need to change it now. _______________________________________________ Wesnoth-dev mailing list Wesnoth-dev@gna.org https://mail.gna.org/listinfo/wesnoth-dev
