KS Balance Base Stats Discussion

Lord Thane

First off, let's look at the buildings, here's what we've got now:

AdvancedTrainingCenter → 35 KS each
Castles → 500 KS each
Farm → 7.5 KS each
Forge → 25 KS each
GuardHouse → 25 KS each
GuardTower → 17.5 KS each
House → 7.5 KS each
Market → 25 KS each
MedicalCenter → 17.5 KS each
Mill → 15 KS each
Mine → 15 KS each
School → 30 KS each
TrainingCenter → 25 KS each

Note that Castles have been specifically excluded for KS, there should be some discussion about whether we should add that on or not.

Trupheus had some input on building KS here that might be helpful for deciding if the buildings need adjustment.

On to units:

Dwarf
unit1 Shieldbearer → 8
unit2 Hammer wheilder → 4.2
unit3 Axe Man → 6
unit4 Runner → 3.5
unit5 Light Crossbowman → 2.7
unit6 Heavy Crossbowman → 3.6
unit7 Wizard → 0.5

Elf
unit1 Mage → 7.7
unit2 Swordman → 2.1
unit3 Lanceman → 2.1
unit4 Caragous → 9
unit5 Archer → 2.4
unit6 Elite Archer → 3.9
unit7 Wizard → 0.5

Gnome
unit1 Catapult → 16.5
unit2 Infantry → 0.7
unit3 Militia → 1.4
unit4 Rider → 3.6
unit5 Rock thrower → 0.9
unit6 Balista → 12
unit7 Wizard → 0.5

Human
unit1 Knight → 6.3
unit2 Infantry → 2.5
unit3 Pikeman → 2.4
unit4 Heavy Infantry → 4.5
unit5 Archer → 2.1
unit6 Mounted Archers → 4.2
unit7 Wizard → 0.5

Orc
unit1 Shadow Warrior → 5.3
unit2 Rusher → 1.4
unit3 Slother → 2.1
unit4 Wolf Master → 3.8
unit5 Slinger → 1.8
unit6 Axe Thrower → 3.3
unit7 Wizard → 0.5

Undead
unit1 Dark Knight → 6.3
unit2 Skeletal Legion → 1.4
unit3 Wraith Pikeman → 2.4
unit4 Abomination Caragous → 4.5
unit5 Phantom Archer → 2.1
unit6 Wraith Rider → 4.2
unit7 Wizard → 0.5

Right off the bat, it looked like the Gnome Rider and Balista KS's were misplaced, should just swap those two around, in fact I just did and that's live now - so Rider is 3.6 and Balista 12.

FriendsInSpace

A couple things at first glance:

Schools - I'd say they should drop to like 20 KS per. Should help magic users not be so inflated KS wise, especially the humans/orcs who use it for utility casting. I also like truphs idea for buildings as well.

Undead and Elf Cara should really be the same, Elf being 9 and undead being 4.5 is silly. I'd say both at 4.5 would be a good starting point, as the only way they are effective is in huge numbers, and given their cost it's hard to get those numbers required without putting yourself in range of a bunch of sharks that you have no business being in.

I'd bump SWs up a bit, maybe to a 6. They are a very powerful unit that has a bad habit of not dying.

Militia should be the same or lower than rts. They are relatively more expensive and all die in LR anyways.

I'll give the rest a think and get back to you

Lord Thane

FriendsInSpace actually it looks to me that Militia and Infantry have been mixed up, like the Rider/Balista. swapping those two should do the trick. For the Cara I agree 4.5 for both sounds good. I think a bump for SW makes sense too.

What does everyone think about increasing/decreasing wiz KS based on their expense and usefulness of races? Elf to .6, human/undead at .5, orc .4, gnome/dwarf .3?

FriendsInSpace

Lord Thane That sounds good. maybe dwarves a tad smaller than gnome?

trupheus

Lord Thane looks to me that Militia and Infantry have been mixed up

This would mean the KS value for undead legion is also incorrect? Which given the strength of legion via swarm I don’t know that it’s necessarily inaccurate to have them at 1.4.

DougEfresh

but dwarves are better at casting then gnomes. speaking with experience from the past 2 rounds

FriendsInSpace

DougEfresh Fair enough, can't say I've played either of the races so I'll defer my opinion to those that have.

Lord Thane

Mkay so we can go dwarf at .3 and gnome at .2? Is anyone against the wiz ks changes?

trupheus

Lord Thane

I think it’s good. Granted not sure what kind of change you’ll see as I doubt many gnomes and dwarves are heavy into wizards. Also, aren’t dwarves at a lower magic affinity then gnomes or are they the same? Could use that for the KS variance. Human at neutral is 5. Elf would be 5.75 (iirc they’re +15%). Orc is 4.25 (-15%).

And orcs I think need to have the increased KS from SW if you’re going to drop wiz KS because it is realistic to see them run wizards.

Lord Thane

trupheus yes Dwarves are worse off than Gnomes by s little bit, probably should just stick them both at .3 since the difference is so small.

I'm okay with dropping schools to 20 as FIS suggested, that's about middle of where you were wanting it in your resource adjusted buildings map.

What you think about castles? There's specifically a ks value and also specifically a ks nullifier on it. I think giving ks from them makes sense, and 500 roughly sounds good to me. Not sure why the nullifier was put on it and don't remember if they ever gave ks before.

trupheus

And another thought to not completely hose all the elves, also drop the KS per school.

Lord Thane

trupheus don't worry, we'll hose them when we get to the tech modifiers that boost their wiz ks even more on each tech level lol

trupheus

Lord Thane

Castle KS is fine being left out? I questioned that before and ultimately I don’t know that it matters. If anything it’s going to feel even worse to have a lot of castles. If you’re high KS you’re going to be even higher and have fewer suitable targets. If you’re low KS with high castles it’s going to make you bigger which means bigger kingdoms that want your castles can come take them. It already feels like punishment to keep pushing castles and not just farm at 19 castles. You lose out in every exchange.

Holistically I think these quick changes to school Ks and wiz Ks are good. Magic is in such rocky place I could see that changing again. The system desperately needs reworked. What do you do when someone 4x your size decides your kingdom has no need for freezers and every mug is chilled? Likewise when someone 1/4 your size decides that you should shouldn't have population. The smaller kingdom has little recourse. The larger kingdom can choose to sacrifice themself to go get payback but they’re not recovering from dropping 50% of their ks quickly, if ever. What doesn’t caster do when they get caught? There’s some real doomsday scenarios with FB that would rival EQing someone to the ground in 30 seconds… it’ll just take days instead of seconds.

Would love other folks chiming in to give other thoughts.

DougEfresh

Lord Thane i know this is off topic, but dwarves are better at casting than gnome. i would get a bless off 100% of the time, with mp, as a dwarf with 8:1. I've been using 10:1 with gnome due to failing at any lower.

Lord Thane

trupheus I suppose leaving castles off the table should be fine, we do want to encourage castle production, and the big kingdoms are already going to get a big blast of ks from tech modifiers

We shouldn't derail this thread with magic/casting, it's not going to push the KS balance discussion forward, and Keeper hasn't decided on what to do yet as far as I know. Plus, there's no lack of other threads talking about magic problems lol

FriendsInSpace

Lord Thane I would tend to agree with leaving castles out, so as not to give yet another reason to not build them.

And yeah, would love to see more people's input on this, so if it all goes catastrophically wrong truph and I can't be held solely accountable lol.

Its a topic for the future, but in regards to tech balancing I'm not sure I would modify wiz ks until you get to insight/magical instruments. The spells themselves I don't believe should affect wiz.

Lord Thane

FriendsInSpace that's a good point, but I would argue we only skip the first 2 levels of spell tech in that case, and then begin cranking it up at lvl 3 when the destructive spells come into play which makes the wiz much more formidable (EQ and firewall, which kills enemy units on defenses).

FriendsInSpace

Also, would like to add I really appreciate this method of going about this, collaboration for the betterment of the game experience for everyone I believe is the best thing.

FriendsInSpace

Lord Thane I could get behind that reasoning actually, good point.

trupheus

I can see where NS3 and NS4 should definitely increase Ks per wiz. NS1 and 2. Meh.

Lord Thane

DougEfresh maybe Keeper updated the casting engine during one of the new updates like the undead spell or when the EQ got nerfed? I don't remember seeing it specifically, but it's possible. The last time I looked at that code was I think during the last beta round and it was setup to give dwarves the hardest time with casting. I just haven't been in that part of the game in so long to know if it changed. I'd assume if it was changed it must have been a mistake.

Incidentally, when I was gnome last round I cast with 7 mp and never failed once. Now as human I had to bump up to 8 mp and it still fails once in a great while. Very interesting. Maybe there's a bug for gnome/dwarf giving them some kind of magic advantage, or maybe it's just with MP 🤔 I'll have to take a look when I get a moment.