s44 Feedback

[willow reef]

It's been a couple servers since I've made the last one, but it's good to be back! Here's my personal feedback on round s44 - Carby.
Disclaimer: I played this round as an Elf in HOWLING. This will of course have impact on my insights.

I'd also note that some suggestions I go over here might contradict each other. I'm not a game designer and I don't make this suggestions with the intent of wanting to see them directly implemented; their major purpose is to try and give more context on what specifically feels bad / could feel better.

Patch specific changes

Thought there were no patch notes for s44, I skipped s43 so I didn't get to talk about the refactored tribute system. Good change to prevent abuse, not much more to add to it.

The Eternal Obelisk & the Fallen issue

Another round of playing with the "new old" endgame and I feel like I have a better grasp on how the situation plays out... and it's not very fun. I think the gameplay loop has a few issues that I'd like to talk about.

Fallen generation

Contrary to the previous system, when it comes to the Eternal Obelisk and having multiple realms go for the win that way, fallen count actually matters. Running out of fallen is actually a concern that you have to play around - and that's fine, resource management. The real issue is how you gather fallen... Fallen are gathered by killing your own troops, and well, traditionally, you don't want to "kill your own resources", you want to "kill your opponents resources"...

So how does this impact the gameplay? Well, it HEAVILY encourages "playing as bad as possible". Countering your own fights, taking items off of your warlords so they die more, intentionally doing bad attacks so your troops die, intentionally not fighting certain realms as to not kill their troops... Effectively, 1-2 weeks right before the EO opens, you have to do a full switch and just intentionally play bad. It's not particularly intuitive or a fun pattern, but it is the optimal way to play. It's not a rewarding system.

One proposal I had in mind was to swap fallen count to "troops you kill" instead of "troops that die" - this actually rewards playing good, which is something the current system misses. This suggestion is probably impractical, as it heavily affects dungeon progression and systems would probably have to be rebalanced around that. However, I believe the intent of a system that rewards actually "playing the game strategically well" would be the way to go here.

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The EO loop

You have your portals / ark transfer as close to the middle as you could put it. The Eternal Obelisk opens. Realms start sending their fallen there over and over, fighting for control. The "EO loop" would be this phase of the game, where competing realms trade blows at the obelisk, shields go up and down, control swaps often, timers keep ticking down until finally one breaks through.

I've finally played the "EO loop" a few times with the "new old" endgame, both just going along for the ride, as well as being in a leading position of coordinating the entire realm's ghost warlords on when to send, when to leave, when to stay, when to shield, etc; enough to feel comfortable having an opinion of the gameplay loop it provides... and that opinion is that... it's kinda meh? I have a few problems with the existing gameplay that revolves around eternally ascending this way.

Depth of gameplay

First one might just be a symptom of me not being smart enough, but there's very few real strategies when it comes to holding control of the obelisk. The gameplay patterns I've seen employed are basically "try something, see if it sticks, if not change it up a little". Between sending "full trains" with pretty much all the warlords in your realm at the same time to take control of it, to "half trains" every ~5 minutes in order try to mess up your opponent refills as a way to get control, or sending "grinding trains" (Ceru/Trank + poisoners) in order to dwindle the enemy fallen trough shields... there's not really much more strategic planning around it - it's a single objective in the middle of the map that pretty much becomes the only thing that you want to interact with ever. If we take the concept of "Macro" and "Micro" gameplay decisions, the Eternal Obelisk is 100% micro-decisions.

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This isn't necessarily a bad thing. They're almost a reverse of the regular wars, where it's mostly about the macro-decisions and micro-decisions play a much smaller role. There's a lot of thought that can be put around when to refill, when to stay so you can do a "teleport loop" (have your troops lose the EO fight so they teleport to ark defeated and can IMMEDIATELY start a "full train" to take control back and hit the wounded there), how to time your attacks, what type of attacks to make...

But at the end of the day, the number one thing that still matters is activity. If your realm is, for example, three times as active as the opposing realm, it doesn't matter what you do; if you keep throwing fallen at the EO, it's pretty hard to lose*. The above examples of decision making only really matter if your realm is as active as the opposing realms; otherwise, the more active realm will likely win. Again, this is not a problem, just something that further takes away from the strategy revolving the Eternal Obelisk.
* assuming an even-ish starting position - not a huge difference in number of fallen, equal access to the EO, etc.

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With all these details combined, playing the EO really just feels like a slog. Going and coming back is always fast, fallen trips take less than 10 minutes to go, less than 7 to come back; teleports happen making it faster; every iteration of taking and losing control usually buys you somewhere from 10 to 20 minutes of control... so usually, to complete the required 36 hours of ascension in a 1v1 scenario, you're looking at something around 50 to 60 hours of repeated actions, making "the same" decisions hundreds of times over the course of that time - and that's on a 1v1, the moment you mix a third or more realms it gets way more dire. It's a very exhaustive way to finish a server. Maybe reducing the time required to ascend drastically - like to 12 or 16 hours (while maybe adjusting the EO opening time accordingly, so that the first 8 hours aren't doing most players sleep time; but then again, in my experience players rally and can sacrifice an entire night to pull a team all nighter to finish everything and it's very hype, but probably better to start at a friday then?) - could make it feel less sluggish.

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Lack of agency (>2 realms)

The other problem that I have with the EO is that when there's at least three realms involved in fighting for it (regardless if they're in some way allied or not - I feel this is a problem even in a free-for-all; maybe even a greater problem in F4A, as then it is just pure luck), it feels like a lot of the success of your own decisions are reliant on the other parties "not being stupid". In other words, when realm A, B and C are all fighting for the EO and trying to manage everything that's going on, it's very easy for realm A to make a decision that really screws realm A and realm B (mostly around sending a big wave on a very bad timing), giving realm C a massive advantage. In this scenario... what is realm B supposed to do? They had no agency over being behind, as whatever move realm A made is what royally screwed the situation for both of them; the decisions that they made had no impact on this result, and it feels really horrible to be in this position... and it's not an "uncommon" position to find.

Wrap up

The EO loop is a very exciting, high paced, and it's really cool to see the team spirit going, the discussions around what to do in so short time windows, seeing the control change back and forth, adapting, counting fallen... and then the adrenaline runs out, and you realise you still have another 40 hours of this, that your decisions don't actually have any significant impact, and die a little bit on the inside, sighing in relief when it's finally over. There's a really fun aspect to it, and there are very big highs throughout, but there are also very long lows that just make the experience, like I said at the start, meh.

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Units balance

Another topic I wanted to touch on is units balance. Some servers ago (s37) there was a patch that made significant changes to unit bonus across the board, reducing bonuses from "100%" to "75%" on all the anti-troops. I believe this was a great change at the time, tipping the power balance a little less towards counters and a little more towards pure power. Now, 7 servers later, I think there's a negative consequence to this where, a lot of the times, the best thing is to just throw your biggest units in a warlord and send it out with no actual thought in what you're putting in, and that will do pretty good, because they'll be huge warlords and even if they die a horrible death, hey, that's a billion fallen you get back (see earlier my issues with fallen-generation). It doesn't feel that much rewarding to actually thinking through what units to put and use on your warlords, and then they face warlords that are just "no thoughts just high tier" and they only do just a smidge better than the enemy. I believe that these bonuses could be touched up again, and I'd be happy to see maybe a 5% increase across the board (so "75%" -> "80%"), just to make planning feel a little more rewarding.

Fun fact - this was my exact feedback 7 servers ago 😄 -> #1244676092917186570 message

This is specifically regarding all 100% bonuses being reduced to 75%; I think this change really hit the mark. It lightly shifts combat towards raw power instead of perfect counters, but in a way where good counters are still great. Honestly, I think it could maybe go up a little bit, like 80%, but at 75% I'm perfectly happy with their current state.

Seems I'm no longer perfectly happy with their current state 😛

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New units

I also wanted to give a light brush on the Stonehoof riders and Greenhide Guardians, when it comes to producing them (both in town and getting them from supplies), it feels like they may be slightly mispositioned in the rankings. I feel like they should be a little cheaper (and supplies should give more of them) and have their power rebalanced-appropriately if necessary. To me they have felt like I always get just as much of them as I get from the next unit over (Whisperers / Thunderjaws) and that doesn't feel quite right; it makes them feel not very impactful as I find I don't always have as many as I'd like to have, and therefore less opportunities to use them.

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Warlord balance

I think warlord balance is perfectly healthy. There's a few rarely used warlords, and there's warlords that are definitely stronger than their peers, but you see a lot of diversity through the game, different builds at different stages, and even in the late game there's no cut and dry "this is the 10 warlords that you should run every time" - even discussing pros and cons with other people the full 10 final warlords usually end up being a combination of ALL different late game warlords instead of being the same pool of 11 or 12

However, I do feel like there's one outlier - Arksnout. Arksnout is a really potent and really really fun to use early game dwarf warlord, that is an absolute destroyer of PvP in the early islands, the king of sniping and going on a rampage around the map - and I think that's fine; elves have Cicatrix as it's "mirror" and they both enable a lot of strong PvP gameplay. However, my issue with Arksnout is how well it scales. A warlord that you unlock at level 25* should not still be relevant past i3, much less be one of the powerhouses of fights in anvils. Arksnout is one of the warlords that I see frequently used by dwarves in i4, and being extremely effective on what it does. I'd like to see his late game power scaled down a little bit; I haven't done the math, but something like "reducing the artillery slot from 200 to 190" maybe does the trick? Given that all the late game masteries benefit from the size of the slot, this should reduce his late game power without damaging the early game power a lot. Actually, looking at the rest of the warlord rooster for dwarves... is it possible this slot value is already "bugged" too be too high? Other dwarf warlords with artillery slots only have 200 units on them from level 85 forward... all others in between (40, 55, 70) have slots between 180 and 190. An oversight?

* Cicatrix and Trankard are level 25 warlords that are relevant past i3 and extremely relevant on the EO. However, I feel like these warlords are okay as they add an element of "team play benefits" to the game and overall generate a good experience both playing with and playing against. They're powerful for sure, but not in the toxic way that Arksnout is, pun intended.

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Beating on a dead horse

Here's some topics I've mentioned in previous feedback threads and that I still feel are problems with the game. I'm not going to go deep into them as I have already previously in my feedback threads (and people can still go back and read them if they want to) but I still wanted to shout them out because I think they deserve more attention:

Attack bonus

AB units still don't feel like they're in the right place. They're very hit or miss - some servers they feel good, others they feel like completely useless unusable units. They should get changed in some way (even some sort of rework or I'd take a small buff).

Anti% items

Anti% items are not good for the game. They're usage isn't particularly fun neither for the user or for the opponent on the receiving end (and hey I'm someone who abuses them thoroughly). I know there's steps being taken towards clarity on using them, but I still don't feel like their existence is a net positive for the game.

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Instant-upgraded towns

Saving resources between moon phases to instant-upgrade fields is the most unbalanced thing in the game, and the development gap between players who do it and don't do it is way too big. The number of people in a single realm that are doing it or not doing it is a very good metric to see which realms will success and which won't - and this is a very bad thing.

1vMany

Getting into situations where realms have the ability to fully engage into an allied relationship against another one is still very frustrating. It's really demoralizing to just face a combined 30 players as a limit of 15. I don't think there's a lot that can be done about this, and I think the major problem with this is not necessarily with the game but with the 15 players that are willing to accept "settling for second place and giving someone else the win", but it's something that actively turns players away.

QOL

Finally, I wanted to touch up on some quality of life things in the game.

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Button press for ascending

@drfinch suggested this and I think it'd be a great addition. It'd be awesome if instead of immediately ascending once you get a gate, you'd need a lear to press an "ascend" button to start the countdown instead of it just starting automatically, similarly to how you have to activate relics after conquering them. This could prevent a lot of unintentional / newbie behaviour. To clarify, this button should just be to start the ascension, no other change; any ability to like cancel it by pressing a button could be abused and that'd be bad.

Item filter in inventory

I think someone suggested this before but I can't find it; it'd be great if the same item filter we "recently" got for the dungeon was also available on our own warlord inventory, as a way to filter through the items we have while trying to manage them.

Map after ascending eternally

Once a realm ascends from the EO, they lose the ability to see the rest of the match :(. The "SHOW MAP" button on the islands stops working, which I imagine is just a bug (?), but it's a real bummer. Currently if you ascend eternally and don't close the game you'll still be able to see it until you close, but after that not anymore.

Filter internationalization

Currently the bonus for anti-elf / anti-dwarf in the items filters in the dungeon is bugged; seems to be missing the translation key. I just mention this here because it's something that's likely very very very easy to fix and really bothers me 😂

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Wrap up

And that's it for s44. I had a lot of fun this server, and I still feel like the game is in an incredibly fun, yet a little bit exhausting, state. I'm likely taking another server off (or just play as a dual) to just recharge, but excited to see changes and play more!

[lethal ridge]

Most stupid mechanic is, that during i2 game changes from "skill play" to "play like an asshole and be rewarded with fallens" so I'd like if fallens will be counted from lost wp ratio. So if you snipe, kill 1M WP and loose 330k WP, you should get 2/3 of fallens from both players combined.

2nd most stupid mechanic is friendly fallen swap. Solution could be stop converting fallens like 5 day before endgame and whole endgame. "what you do before endgame+5 is what you get". Ofc dungeon should be little lowered in this case.

[wary tide]

while understand the arguments, the problem is the fallen originally served a bit of a different role .. it should be a catch-up that if you're loosing (troops) you're at least rewarded with some progress in your single play / dungeon ... killing other troops rewards you already with more XP and with SoulEnergy to progress on the troop research .. so changing the fallen from own losses to killed units will increase the snowballing even more - so it will be very hard for the lower realms

[willow reef]

That's an interesting insight into the original design, but I feel like it doesn't hold up much nowadays right? Fallen, in my purview, as someone who pretty much always plays for first place, are the win condition. But I also totally understand how changing them can mess up entire balance systems because of this.

I'd be suprisied if this was a collected metric already, but it'd be interesting to see how fallens would compare if they were "killed troops" instead of "dying troops". Like, keep it the way it is right now for the next server, but have the game log for each player daily "current fallen / current fallen if it counted kills instead"; maybe it sort of works out still.

[wary tide]

in theory we could also introduce a new type of fallen .. basically the killed souls and use them for the endgame instead of your fallens.. but thats probably quite confusing .. but would have also the advantage that you don't loose your dungeon progress in the endgame

To make the Endgame more interesting i would love to try out 2 bigger changes .. but i cannot promise it, that they would be done in time. But i would like to try out in S45 a change that on Island 4 (but only on island 4) the conquer of towers is always allowed - even without being at war .. so basically as it is during the endgame but completly on .. so fights should get already more intense before the EO is open .. and there could be the option when you're holding an Eternal Anvils you can activate an temporary general Fighting Bonus for all Fallens instead of the Shield.. so you might want to hold the Anvils before attacking the other Party in the EO (or need to split yourself for better defense)

[lethal ridge]

lower realms usually defend, so they have a lot of opportunities to counter = to get more fallen by WP.

[willow reef]

I don't think it needs to be complicated that much... again, my only major issue with the current system is that it heavily incentives you "play dumb" so you can have more troops killed and don't kill your enemy troops, which just feels rather silly to say the least.

[wary tide]

but my main point why i'm quite disappointed how the EO is failing.. is a bit what players make out of them 😉 .. in most servers/island i see often that the order of the EO is basically almost predefined.. so either the current #1 is so strong that it is just allowed to ascend sometimes without fights to save the fallens for a later fight .. or like this time on i4 after we've seen fights for it there are then agreements after #1 is gone that #2 and #3 doesn't fight each other for the places to protect themself for going depleted and getting a worse place.. while the lower realms are then not able to fight #2 & #3 together .. another idea i had once was that maybe Fallens are not dying when fighitng they're just coming back with a cooldown of 24h .. so you're only temporary depleted and can just go for it

[lethal ridge]

Last i4 took like 2 days hard fights to deplete fallens. So in this case "24 hours cooldown" makes "unlimited fallens". (I dont say its good or bad.)

[wary tide]

yes.. it could be also 36h cooldown.. number was just to get the idea