CEO v0.54 [Balance Preview]
VoidMage cost increased to 6/9/14/16
Null Magic causes 'transparency' (ghost)
Nulled Gemini splits into 0 value twins.
FireMage costs reduced to 6/7/9/10
Taurus costs reduced to 5/6/8/10
Siren tier shift up 4/6/8/10
Rook cost -1 all tiers
Rook ++/+++ movesets changed
Harpy+++ cost+1
Arachnid+++ cost-1
Knight0 cost+1
Princess+++ penalty+2
Pyromancer cost-1 all tiers (or) tier shift up
Medusa cost -1 all tiers
Medusa+++ lose 1 petrify range
Medusa lose petrify immunity, because lore.
Phalanx0 cost-1
Snake effect threshold reduced to 10 as anti-RPS
Snake+++ cost-1 as anti-something
Tombstone range +1 at all tiers
Tombstone morale effect increased by 1
Summon Skeleton returned to [Pay 4]
Skeletons gains promote into Skeleton+++ (experimental)
Archer tier shift up, (same cost)
RoyalGuard+++ gain unblockable swaps [+] and lose static teleports.
Ghost ++/+++ cost+1
Salamander+ and higher cost+1
Salamander+++ gains a couple tele-from-start locations
Undine +/++ cost-1
Dragon cost-1 on all (except +++)
Wrath tier shift up at cost 6/8/10/12
Crusader0 gain 1 [x] move only,
Crusader+ gains [x] move or attack, but has no range 2 move only
Crusader costs become 9/13/17/20
Chastity cost -1 all tiers (except +++)
Beacon+++ gains 1 [x] move only (and augment will overlap it)
Valkyrie+++ cost+1
Hydromancer tier shift, unblockable atk-only at final
Hydromancer cost becomes 5/8/9/10
Prince cost reduced to 8/9/12/14
Mercenary moveset changed:
(new merc+, current becomes++, and +++ remains the same)Mercenary cost becomes 1/2/4/6
ArchBishop cost reduced to 15/18/21/24
Fortress cost reduced to 16/21/25/28
Banshee moveset changed to gain 1 teleport range per tier, ending on the same +++
(meaning - range at base)Banshee cost-1 all tiers from above change. . . ?
EarthElemental cost changed to something probably.
Gnome+++ cost+1
Behemoth cost reduced at +/++ by 1
Bat rework to add single attack-only 1 space backwards
Bat gains on kill enemy lose 1 morale, (or) 1 vamp drain
Bat likely retains 0/1/2/3/5 with final tier slightly harder to promote
Bomber+ gains diagonal move from start, loses 2 range move
Templar+++ cost -1
Base Ranger cost +1
Tiger cost becomes 1/3/5/7
Frog/Toad "leap attack" gains chaining, attacking consecutively in the same direction
Gluttony glitch damage per attack reduced by 9000+
Bishop+ and higher cost+1
Drake cost-1 all tiers
Slime cost-1 all tiers
GiantSlime cost-1 all tiers
GravityMage partial tier shift up (sides --o-- remain the same)
GravityMage new costs 4/6/9/12
Frog into slime ghostlyness removed
WaterElemental tier shift up, with final tier akin to wizard
WaterElemental new costs 6/8/12/16
FrostMage base tier removed
FrostMage+ becomes base, and new+ becomes transition into ++
Hoplites tier shift up, at the same cost. (undecided final tier moveset.)
all tiers of Portal gain 1 teleswap directly in front (super fancy)
Guardian... Cost-1 and range-1... ? (unlikely, after kingmove thread)
Spider gains arachnid promote (experimental)
Spearman+ and higher gain 0.5 diagonal move only (0.5=start, then solid, then 2 range start, etc.)
Swordsman+ gains only sidemove
Swordsman++ gains only backmove
Swordsman+++ looks like current++, but all remain at current cost
Paladin cost -1 all tiers
MageTower cost-1 all tiers
andPhoenix Beacon retroactively added into history, or something.
OK,
so, this is a giant wall and will be hard to decipher and compare.
I have not coded all of this into the game yet, so things are more subject to change than normal. However, I have put a rather extreme amount of thought into the majority of this, so please do not expect many 'knee-jerk' reactions to hold much weight. None of the "i told you so" effect should be derived from the amount of time I just spent typing that wall and will need to actually write it into the game, if I happen to not heed your opinions on this, but I would very much like to hear opinions on this, and especially, for an expert to call me out on creating any "strict" imbalances with this.
If something stands out to you, or you think I missed something, please mention it below.
Please also let me know if you even think balance previews are worth the effort to begin with.
I will give crowns for each strict imbalance posted in the comments HERE or... contribits elsewhere, I guess...
(ha! jk, literally everyone posting here gains crowns for showing up)
VoidMage nerf – Why do I sense there will be extra nerfing to this?
NullMage buffs – I do enjoy these buffs, no one used NullMage and transparency will provide tactical thinking.
Knight nerf – Good.
Medusa nerf – I like the reason behind it, a cheaper weaker Medusa should be fine.
Skelly buff – I don’t like this; it also buffs all skelly related units.
Archer buff – As someone who actually uses archers: as much as it pains me, I don’t actually think they need a buff. Cheap if a little fiddly.
Ghost nerf – Good, balancing the many king-movers is a hard.
Salamander nerf – they were a better basilisk; one of them had to change.
Wrath buff – I didn’t think wrath needed much of a buff, though I don’t see them often…
Crusader buff – I don’t like crusader being able to solo checkmate.
Beacon buff – As much as a moving beacon feels wrong, I understand it needing to avoid lighting/meteor.
Valkyrie nerf – It is more a case that a little bit of moveset tweaking is in order.
Hydromancer/Water Elemental buff – they needed a buff.
Mercenary change – I would have to see the new moveset to make a proper judgement, but as it is Merc+ needs a nerf.
Archbishop/Fortress buff – Fair, they were too expensive to use.
Banshee change – But, that’s their gimmick.
Bat change – I’m not sure how I feel about this… But I atleast want to see this, even if it gets removed/changed next patch.
Frog/Toad buff – This is dumb, mildly terrifying and ineffective. I love it.
Slime/GSlime buff – Fair.
Portal buff – Interesting.
Spider buff – I like this idea, but it can’t be a backrow promote. Sylph style would be nice.
Swordsman hard nerf – Please no.
Does this mean the breakfast combo is back? I hope not.
This isn't piecemaking contest, you know?
Seems like mostly good changes. I don't know if I'll be using swordsman ++ anymore if he's just a lot worse. It was already pretty interchangeable with axeman or pikeman in many cases.
I doubt the bat change will see much use but it is pretty funny and flavorful. It might be possible to see a Taurus or Tombstone after the patch. Rook being reduced in cost is... A little strange. I don't agree with it but it won't make a huge difference balance-wise.
I think spider promote will be too good on spiders that move more than 2 squares, some of them can really scoot a long ways right now. That's the main concern I have so far.
Also frog into slime ghostlyness wasn't a balance change. As a matter of principal, now that it's called ghostlyness I want it to stay in.
it is quite hard to get rook upgrades that leave normal lines intact, don't add diagonal attacks, don't spam move only, and have a decent cost. I think it will throw base rook into being slightly too strong and drag the others for the ride to some degree, but a classic unit being a little OP is actually kinda nice - good ammo against anyone saying the game is super unbalanced or p2w when zeropride can just beat them down with pawns and such. :)
everyone says this, so it's probably true. I thought it would be the best test against the idea of having all the radial minions promote like templar->paladin, apprentice->wizard, drake->dragon, mephit->demon, etc. but spider is among those and possibly the most hazardous. I was inclined to see what an OP spider looks like, but maybe it should stay the way it is... although for some reason I really want to know what an OP spider looks like lol.
Hmm... I was thinking about Spider promotion possibilities, and how a spider really should be eating its victim, and I came up with this.
Considering Spider is colourbound, not very useful (but "Attack Poisoned unit" could always go on Knight squares or something?), but just to illustrate the idea...
How bad could an OP spider really be...?
Here's some years-old pictures of what I would make for Bishop/Rook (ignore the undercosts, movesets are important)... I'm pretty sure I brought them up because I think they look especially elegant for upgrades. I remember you denying them for some reason (not in the sarcastic 'for some reason' sense, I really don't remember why - although probably if I remembered it, it would be the sarcastic meaning tbh).
Anyway, I like these a lot because I think a classic unit with the theme being that it is diagonal (bishop) or axial (rook) getting like 20000 move squares into the other direction is ugly, getting TELEPORTS is ugly, and the two not being the same upgrade path but rotated 45 degrees is also ugly. They're all aesthetic disagreements but that's my view on it, you may consider getting attacks like what I suggested 'ugly' probably.
-main_gi
hey now, bishop gaining 'angelic' teleports is super sneaky and cool.
but those movesets do look quite appealing, I just feel like there is something wrong with a diagonal attacking rook for anyone that has it deeply encoded into their mind, maybe in the same way that teleports and such look to you, and in the same way, overwriting the normal moves they start with using unblockables and such has the same effect on me.
Very hard to retain some semblance of 'purity' on these units across tiers, but yours actually manage to notice that as important which makes them a lot more appealing to me.
shogi has diagonal-attacking rooks. granted, they're the result of promoting, but the idea does exist in actual chess lore. Bishops do the same thing, but orthogonal instead.
If spider promoted on poisoning as sylph on pushing, to just higher tier of self, and spider+++ into base arachnid, I think this would be completely fine. Maybe not even enough to make all spider tiers appealing enough, but I can see trying at least spider+++, and maybe base competes with base sylph for spot ? Anyway, it would be the theme of your original intention, far from too good, and some way to boost spider for at least experimenting with it.
This is a good sugestion.
Based on this, my current army will cost the same, as the VM+++ change will be compensated by the rook and banshee change. So I am good with this :)
But what about "Gluttony glitch damage per attack reduced by 9000+"? I do not believe that the Gluttony has been introduced just yet.
with so many changes listed, that is actually kinda amazing.
I think it means that Gluttony is very hard to program into the game without glitches.
joke is that gluttony glitches are a balance aspect, from him inflicting glitch damage
First of all this is a great list of changes, and it should definitely be a move in the right direction balance-wise. However, I do have a few things I would change/add:
-As others stated, I don't think Valkyrie+++ needs a nerf, I think the problem is that the + and ++ tiers do not currently justify the extra cost from tier 0. Instead of nerfing the final tier, I would change the previous tiers like this:
1)Valkyrie+ and above can teleport the king before any pieces were lost
(Giving Valk0 the weakness of leaving the king vulnerable to
immediate sniping attempts)
2)Valkyrie++ and above can move (but not take pieces) before losing a
friendly piece (this removes its current vulnerability against
immediate thundermage/summoner/wrath attack)
-Bat gaining a backwards attack with mini vampirism sounds both interesting as well as thematic, but harder promotion at final tier seems like yet another nerf to the vampire which, at 25 cost, doesn't deserve it in my opinion.
-Spider promoting into an arachnid could be interesting if the correct method is chosen for promotion. Personally I think with how cheap and mobile the spider is it would be OP if it promoted on the backline or on its first usage of poison (at least without a cost increase) but promoting on its second poisoned unit would seem balanced as well as fun.
-Finally, Royal Guard++ already has great Synergy and is very powerful with a queen, so I really think it needs +1 cost as well.
This honestly looks like a solid rebalance update and I look forward to more of these in the future. The Balance Preview might be extra work but I think it's a great way of getting extra feedback from the community, leading to better balance overall.
I feel like the effect/limitations morphing across tiers idea is better expressed as limitations changing across units, if that makes sense. A patience or fire elemental effect is gradient and numeric so it can be intuitively 'learned' rather than 'remembered' so while I do kinda agree how Valk+/++ are the main problem, I'm not sure this is the solution.
It's kinda like the general view is valk consists of 2 units and some transitions used rarely for niche purpose, so maybe at least 1 of them could be removed as a fragmented tier shift into new final tier that leaves existing Valk+++ intact? I think of all the Valk tiers + is the most boring, so tier shift from there is maybe an option.
probably it would be something like, 1 max range of move only on +++ in exchange for the attack/effect on all bats, which vampires could use in emergency or tactical scenarios as an actual attack, instead of only escapes. I think the new bat is going to be super fancy, but main point is to avoid it always being tilted toward "bat+++ or nothing" style balance that a few units have fallen into.
I guess it's a pretty universal consensus that this won't work, so probably I'll just scrap it
There is still the skeleton experiment to find some interesting things, but much less volatile than spider.
Maybe some other time a slow version of spider could have promote though?
maybe range of moves 1,2,3 then tele, or something, with the promote.
does that sound more containable if it were too strong?
I will consider this more, but lean towards ghost++ > RG++ atm.
thanks for showing up to the new forums by the way. I know the entry barrier to get in is strangely massive and tedious compared to basically any game forum ever, but I think we can remedy that in various ways over time. Eventually it will be common CEO knowledge how to navigate this place in much more effective ways that have less friction involved, but for now it is how it is, so I'm glad you got your foot in the door.
I like the sound of skipping rank+ for Valkyrie and getting a new +++ as long as the new moveset is interesting. Perhaps some really long range king teleportation spots to allow using the king more on the offensive.
Now that I think more about it I think the new bat might indeed have some very neat uses, and if the mobility loss is minimal then I'm all for it.
I actually like the idea of spider promoting into arachnid, I just find alternative promotion methods that don't involve getting to the other side of board more interesting, and more fitting here. Perhaps the poison squares for the spider could be changed into "poison unit or devour poisoned unit" allowing the spider to kill an unit that has already been poisoned and turn itself into an arachnid of the same tier.
As for the RG++/ghost++ dilemma, I don't think that the ghost is strictly stronger at all.
Ghost is a defensive piece that can offer an advantage to initiative in the early game in exchange for reduced ability to protect vital units in the late game.
Royal guard, on the other hand, is a powerful offensive piece when used together with a queen, a strong control piece when used together with an offensive prince, and a decent bodyguard when the allied king is about to be cornered.
While I agree that both pieces deserve nerfs, Royal Guard has some amazing synergies and currently performs way too well for its cost even without using its unique ability. In my opinion, it is even more in need of a nerf compared to a strictly defensive ghost.
Also worth mentioning, phoenix0 at its current price of 14 can be resurrected by lifestone+++, leading to some situations where a single phoenix can essentially multiply an absurd number of times. While it is indeed morale intensive, this many units with 'kill attacker on death' can be very strong against melee focused armies, and together with enough utility to move the eggs around and put them behind the newly created phoenixes, this type of army can be extremely cancerous to fight against. I have only encountered this once about a week ago, and I can say if that army was played well it would dominate the meta. I can see it soon becoming a problem if it is not fixed.
it is decided, valk+++ will not be nerfed, and instead valk+ will be removed, collapse into a new max tier but not sure what it looks like yet.
the bats will be super fancy, but spiders I think everyone sees a problem.
for Ghost vs RG, I think they are strangely hard to compare depending on tier, but my intuition says that RG should stay same costs, because the big change to RG is the new +++ looking like current Ghost++ which will hopefully mean that someone will finally use them. It would seem silly to do this, and then nobody uses it again in favor of Ghost or Butterfly. RG is strange to balance however, because even one that has no moves would act as a kind of pseudo-wisp for royal units. I think you are probably right that it will be the stronger between the two if only ghost increases in cost, but I am somehow inclined to do it anyway to see the fancy RG swaps, maybe even to combo with the new valk+++
Current Ghost++ I see as having one too many advantages: swaps, unblockable, and transparency - which is a double edged sword, but then, so are things like Lust magic.
I think people using ghost become quickly attuned to using the transparency in their favor and the added armor breaking and swaps really start to push it over the edge in my view. RG queen synergy is quite extreme, but it involves a very high cost unit where ghost may not.
I guess a better way to describe my view on these is that it seems like ghost belongs 0.5 above RG, but as it is impossible currently I am leaning in favor of making RG+++ a more interesting unit for a while, even if it is a little too strong.
Phoenix-LS+++ I think was some thematic choice.
I'll give it some more recent thought.
I think RG++ is better than Ghost++, but it is obvious to me that most armies that use Ghost+0, Ghost+1, or Phantasm should be using Ghost++ instead if possible. The issue is that rush armies (the favorites for Ghost) do not particularly like a slow unit that moves 1 space over and over.
The irony is I probably contributed a few hundred games to the Ghost++ win metrics, as I was running a double Ghost++ army that uses it for a quick development purpose (Behemoth Minotaur) not a rush purpose.
I'm also not sure if Spider promote isn't going to work. It'll certainly be silly and maybe warrant a -1 range increase so it's not literally instapromote for 2 cost, but I like units with promote than not because it's an extra goal, especially for pieces with ordinarily no reason to go to the other side.
-main_gi
I think if spider actually gains a normal promote it may need more than just range-1 on move, but for now I'm thinking the experimental ideas on skeleton/spider may cause too many problems.
Hey glend, nice to see you here!
-main_gi
Nice to see you as well!
Skeletons promoting is a buff to all skelly related pieces, lich, tombstone and necro. And nerco is already a strong piece. Its strange also that such backtracking-able minion gets promotion, upgrades were previously reserved mosty for minions who could not retreat.
Idk, just loose idea, maybe increase all skelly cost by 1 except +++, but then make them upgrade into higher tiers when killing stuff.
Some poeple talked about possibility to make your own units transparent with new nullmage, and that made me think if its possible to change taurus same way, so he could rush his own units for emergency transport. Deadly if used wrong. Might be tricky when combined with hostages, so they might need to recieve rushimmunity, or rush abbility should be changed into ranged. But then antimage would be buffed this way.
Skeletons becoming OP is hilarious and I want to see it
I really don't want to fight against a cost 9 Pyromancer, especially without a Ranger or PoisonMage or Alchemist.
I'm leaning towards the tier shift now, but still not sure exactly how it will be done.
Could VoidMage be nerfed across the board to push the Range 3 voidmage beyond the lifestone barrier?
Suggesting the cost for VoidMage be 7/10/15/17
This game just got 10x more fun. (Well to be realistic it's like 1.05x but saying that would make this post lame)
+5% fun bonus HYPE!!!
lol, nice to see you here.
i personally think guardian is fine, I like to use it by putting it near the enemy king, and having it swap to protect a strong unit who can then kill the king.
I like the null idea, it adds a unique unit who i can definitely make a stupid army with.
I think the guardian change was intended as some form of pseudo-buff, but considering the other changes maybe it isn't needed?
glad to have you here btw
going to take a bit of getting used to this forum but it will work out. Glad to see you're back!