[Community mod] Melee rebalance

[Lion.Kanzen]

you have to try the combats in different situations. not just 1 v1.

As they said above, the Pathfinder is important, you have to see how it behaves under formations and other pathfinder issues.

[chrstgtr]

18 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

look too strong. They lose vs spears in 1:1, and slightly win 1v1 (50/50 melee/ranged composition) without micro. So in battle outcomes its actually a nerf.

Fair. Good to know. 

21 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

[Sword Cav] Playtests will make this more clear

Sure, reserve judgment until we actually see it in effect, but this just looks like an item where a very strong unit loses basically nothing and gets their attack doubled. 

18 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

How would you feel about doubling melee infantry damage and leaving cavalry unchanged? Seems like a bad idea to me.

Why? The changes are supposed to address problems. I just don't see and haven't heard any real complaints about a cav meat shield problem. Definitely doesn't exist for cav fighting straight up against inf (except for melee champ cav imo, but that is another issue). 

18 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

There is a cavalry meat shield although it really only happens when 2 cav armies fight.

 I haven't seen it much, if at all. Cav produces too slowly and are too expensive for there to really be a meat shield meta imo. I've always found micro (movement to get into a good army position, not sniping and dancing) with cav way more valuable and effective enough that endless spam and meat shields don't come into play. To get enough units to do a true cav meat shield also requires you to sacrifice a ton of fire power. Besides, it usually makes more sense and is easier to just use an inf meat shield to pair with your cav armies.

18 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

This is due to their armor, not due to their damage. Basically, they massively outlast ranged units instead of killing them quickly.

Ok. But why is that a problem? Doesn't it achieve the desired result of melee winning vs ranged?

18 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

can kill pikemen much faster than they get killed and thus can break through to enemy ranged units

How is this different than the current meta, though? I get that that it will be more likely that melee will decide who wins the front (as opposed to range units in the back), but it still looks the same with units just killing each other in front. Yeah, it will decrease the need for sniping (which would be great), but the gameplay is still otherwise the same--spamming front melee units to make sure they never reach the back range units. It seems like the proposal will basically just keep the meta but make melee actually contribute to killing enemy meat shield but not actually involved in the fighting vs range. Isn't the point of the desired change to introduce new tactics and get melee more involved (i.e., players want more "tactics")?

[Lion.Kanzen]

37 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

same--spamming front melee units to make sure they never reach the back range units. It seems like the proposal will basically just keep the meta but make melee actually contribute to killing enemy meat shield but not actually involved in the fighting vs range. Isn't the point of the desired change to introduce new tactics and get melee more involved (i.e., players want more "tactics")?

This is the ideal situation for a soft-counter.

Spear cavalry vs skirmisher and archers.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

2 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

They're already the strongest CS unit.

javelin cavary.

2 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

I don't think there is a meat shield meta problem nor have I widely heard people complain of one

Before sniping, pikemen were great due to being the highest armored CS unit. This is what made Ptols so OP, because their pike health hero made it impossible to damage the slingers since they were behind pikemen. 

The introduction and proliferation of sniping only means that ranged units can now bypass the meat shield. Sniping works because there is no value in killing melee units by and large. If melee units dealt more damage, then they would have increased combat value.

Many people are frustrated with how simple fights are because of meat shield and now sniping. It is worth noting that people who are not complaining also don't know that things can be better.

I agree that in @real_tabasco_sauce's mod swordcav will likely be quite powerful, we can test them and further reduce hack and/ or pierce armor if need be.

Edited March 27, 2023 by BreakfastBurrito_007

[real_tabasco_sauce]

1 hour ago, chrstgtr said:

Ok. But why is that a problem? Doesn't it achieve the desired result of melee winning vs ranged?

For 1 it means ranged units can just disengage before too many have been killed by infantry. In addition, it is this excessively long time to kill melee units that causes the meat shield meta.

I agree that melee units could use some speed, but that would probably be a separate branch.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

just did some testing with @BreakfastBurrito_007, i'll bring swordcav armor down to 2 from 2.5h and the champ spearcav armor down to 6 hack from 7hack.

[Lion.Kanzen]

I would like to know what @borg- thinks.

[chrstgtr]

 

3 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

For 1 it means ranged units can just disengage before too many have been killed by infantry.

But how is this fixed with the proposal? Now the very first row of range might die but then the rest run and can’t be caught because range units move quicker than melee units. 

Maybe you’re right that there should be an increase to attack (and corresponding decrease to armor), but that can’t address range units running away faster than melee can chase like you’re describing. Doing dmg/armor feels more complicated and like it’s putting the cart before the horse. 

4 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

javelin cavary.

Sword cav are clearly better. They just cost metal. But they can also quickly kill CCs. 

Also, @BreakfastBurrito_007, based on your reply. I think you’re missing some context in what we’re talking about—we were exchanging messaging re cav’s involvement in a meat shield. I don’t like the meat shield, but I also think it’s contained to cav. 

Edited March 28, 2023 by chrstgtr

[real_tabasco_sauce]

1 hour ago, chrstgtr said:

Doing dmg/armor feels more complicated and like it’s putting the cart before the horse. 

Well, frankly its more like a ground-up redesign. The idea is to make this change on a large level. Big changes will feel complicated.

1 hour ago, chrstgtr said:

but that can’t address range units running away faster than melee can chase like you’re describing.

Yeah this is something else to address too. Like I said, probably in a different discussion.

With the planned introduction to the community mod, it should become clear what other changes would do. I could mention that there are speed techs for spearmen and swordsmen in unit specific upgrades.

[Lion.Kanzen]

5 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

With the planned introduction to the community mod, it should become clear what other changes would do. I could mention that there are speed techs for spearmen and swordsmen in unit specific upgrades.

@Genava55  complained  about the speed of the units actual units.

[chrstgtr]

 I said this:

9 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

Currently, melee troops regularly beat range troops when they can actually engage in straight up fights.

You said this: 

8 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

This is due to their armor, not due to their damage. Basically, they massively outlast ranged units instead of killing them quickly.

I asked: 

8 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

why is that a problem? Doesn't it achieve the desired result of melee winning vs ranged?

You said:

6 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

it means ranged units can just disengage before too many have been killed by infantry. In addition, it is this excessively long time to kill melee units that causes the meat shield meta.

You say melee is stronger in straight up fights but that melee can't kill before range units flee. But your proposal focuses 100% on how fast melee can kill range in straight up fights (which again, you say melee already have the upper hand in) and doesn't address the underlying problem that range units can just outrun chasing melee units. In other words, according to you, the melee vs. range problem doesn't exist but for range units' ability to run away from chasing melee. Wanting to address the underlying speed problem necessarily has to come first because your proposal will otherwise fall into the same problem that we currently have: range units will just run away from higher dps melee units. 

If there is a problem with the dps and armor of melee units, you won't know how big the problem is until melee units can actually engage in straight up fights vs range units (which, again, they can't because, as you say, range units just run away from chasing melee). So changing dps and armor of melee units now will only cause complicate the process because you will need to rebalance once you fix the speed issue. I’m the meantime, a change to  attack/armor of melee may also mess with cav vs inf balance, unit vs building balance and/or melee vs range balance. The large level change won't happen because you aren't actually addressing what you've identified as a core problem. 

Edited March 28, 2023 by chrstgtr

[real_tabasco_sauce]

 

46 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

you aren't actually addressing what you've identified as a core problem. 

I have made the core problem clear multiple times: Melee units are a damage sponge, and should instead be a source of damage in a given army composition. Meanwhile, you seem very convinced that the goal of this branch is to improve melee combat against ranged units:

46 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

But your proposal focuses 100% on how fast melee can kill range in straight up fights

It is not. In fact, I sought to keep melee vs ranged fights roughly as balanced as they currently are (hence reducing armor).

My point with this statement

46 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

This is due to their armor, not due to their damage. Basically, they massively outlast ranged units instead of killing them quickly.

was that it is not melee units' damage that kills ranged units, but instead their armor. Thus, in the presence of one's own ranged units, the melee units contribute very little damage to both melee units and ranged units alike. That is why you never see melee units ranking up.

So the real objective for this branch, as I have mentioned previously, is to change melee's role from a focus of being a damage sponge to more of a damage dealer. I am not talking about a melee vs ranged issue, I am talking a core game design issue and as a result, the meat shield issue.

I am not sure why you are hyper focused on this relatively unrelated issue, I have even said multiple times that I support increasing speed of melee units but that is a separate discussion. Furthermore, I have even implemented move speed technologies in unit specific upgrades.

Edited March 28, 2023 by real_tabasco_sauce

[Lion.Kanzen]

40 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

I have made the core problem clear multiple times: Melee units are a damage sponge, and should instead be a source of damage in a given army composition. Meanwhile, you seem very convinced that the goal of this branch is to improve melee combat against ranged units:

a way has to be found for the cavalry to fulfil its role in stamping out these little pests.

In theory, ranged units are deadly little pests that annoy the melee warriors on a battlefield.

 

The cavalry, on the other hand, is the middle class unit (depending on the faction) that can give you a hard time with its tactical manoeuvres.

And the melee infantry is ultimately the ultimate hero.

 

therefore missiles are just a distraction, few civilisations have mastered the bow or the sling, without even mentioning machines like the bolt shooter.

 

the cavalry of this era is still primitive and serves only to flee faster and wear expensive armour, not to mention for example that they only had one hit, charging constantly and accompanying the infantry.

It was not until the invention of the Cataphract that things would change or the tactics of nomadic peoples, with thousands of horses, that would force even the Romans to change their weapons.

You have to take into account that arrows or horses in real life are not infinite.

 

if you think about it, missiles and their role should not be very op, in terms of gameplay, since they don't have a counter system (except spear/spike vs. cavalry).

then we will have the problem of missile vs cavalry and maybe in the long run missile vs spear/spike.

[Lion.Kanzen]

22 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

a way has to be found for the cavalry to fulfil its role in stamping out these little pests.

In theory, ranged units are deadly little pests that annoy the melee warriors on a battlefield.

 

The cavalry, on the other hand, is the middle class unit (depending on the faction) that can give you a hard time with its tactical manoeuvres.

And the melee infantry is ultimately the ultimate hero.

 

therefore missiles are just a distraction, few civilisations have mastered the bow or the sling, without even mentioning machines like the bolt shooter.

 

the cavalry of this era is still primitive and serves only to flee faster and wear expensive armour, not to mention for example that they only had one hit, charging constantly and accompanying the infantry.

It was not until the invention of the Cataphract that things would change or the tactics of nomadic peoples, with thousands of horses, that would force even the Romans to change their weapons.

You have to take into account that arrows or horses in real life are not infinite.

 

if you think about it, missiles and their role should not be very op, in terms of gameplay, since they don't have a counter system (except spear/spike vs. cavalry).

then we will have the problem of missile vs cavalry and maybe in the long run missile vs spear/spike.

I forgot to mention roles and anti units.

Example Anti infantry missile (slingers).
Anti cavalry cavalry (Lancer).

units such as chariots or Elephants with archers that should be units, with high armour or health, but difficult to master.

 

[chrstgtr]

@real_tabasco_sauce, I think you're misstating what  the "meat shield" meta means and, as a result, the proposal isn't tailored to fix the meat shield meta that players complain about. 

The "meat shield" meta that people commonly complain about, is an overriding strategy where players primarily compose their armies of range units and use melee units as a distraction (i.e., melee units become a shield to the more important range units). The meat shield meta is fundamentally defined by how melee units interact with range units. Defined differently, the meat shield meta is defined by how melee units don't interact with range units. 

I've asked (in many threads, including this one), how increasing melee's dps and decreasing melee's armor changes the meat shield meta (as defined above) instead of just changing how quickly the meat shield dies and no one has ever explained it. 

There are at least four main ways the current meat shield meta (as defined above) can change:

1. Melee units can get more dps than range units. Option (1) has been proposed several times but people typically reject it because of fears that the game will become a single unit melee spam.
2. Melee units can get more armor to be able to reach enemy range units. Option (2) is more or less where a25 was with melee units becoming (slightly) more important and battles being decided by whoever actually reached enemy range units with their melee.  
3. Other strategies/tactics, such as sniping, can develop to avoid the meat shield meta. Option (3) is where we are at in a26 with players coming up with alternative stats to get around the meat shield. But most people think micro heavy strategies like this are not ideal and agreement can't be reached on what hard-coded tactics should be developed (e.g., people couldn't area on what attack ground should be).
4. Melee units can be made quicker to reach enemy range units. Option (4) is what I think should be implemented because it's less likely to create the single unit spam problem of option (1) and hasn't already failed like options (2) and (3). 

You seem to be defining the meat shield as a reflection of stats where melee units can absorb a relatively large amount of dmg. People aren't complaining about that--see how no one complains about melee being able to kill range with their relatively high armor and low dps. People are complaining about the strategy where players mass large range armies. Your proposal doesn't appear to address this (but please correct me if I am wrong to believe that your proposal won't just change how quickly the meat shield dies). 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

You appear to be over thinking this. Yes, it changes how quickly melee units die, but you are missing one very important point: What units are doing the damage? Currently, melee units do not determine when the meat shield dies. This is exclusively ranged units, and thats a problem.

36 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

how increasing melee's dps and decreasing melee's armor changes the meat shield meta (as defined above) instead of just changing how quickly the meat shield dies and no one has ever explained it. 

Melee units and ranged units can have any stats determined randomly from 1 to 10000 and the melee units will always die first. simply because of unitAI.

36 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

Melee units can get more dps than range units. Option (1) has been proposed several times but people typically reject it because of fears that the game will become a single unit melee spam.

Ok, then consider the proposal option 1.

Edited March 28, 2023 by real_tabasco_sauce

[real_tabasco_sauce]

25 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

You seem to be defining the meat shield as a reflection of stats where melee units can absorb a relatively large amount of dmg. People aren't complaining about that--see how no one complains about melee being able to kill range with their relatively high armor and low dps. People are complaining about the strategy where players mass large range armies.

The meat shield is quite literally a shield of meat: heavily armored melee units shield weaker ranged units.

People complain about massing large range armies because they only need enough melee to form a shield (30 or 40 pikes is more than enough to shield 80 skirms).

This is a direct consequence of how much armor the melee units have and how little damage they do.

People complain because ranged units are far more impactful in battle outcomes, end of story.

if instead melee units are winning fights, players will get more melee units, melee units will rank up (because they are doing damage), and players will get upgrades for them.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

43 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

melee units become a shield to the more important range units

There, you said it and I didn't even realize.

Why should ranged units be fundamentally more important than melee units? The proposal seeks to address exactly that.

Edited March 28, 2023 by real_tabasco_sauce

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

22 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

Melee units can get more armor to be able to reach enemy range units. Option (2) is more or less where a25 was with melee units becoming (slightly) more important and battles being decided by whoever actually reached enemy range units with their melee.

I would like to offer a correction to this statement:

"... being decided by whoever actually reached enemy ranged units with their melee" should be changed with "... being decided by whoever runs out of melee units first"

because the main deciding factor is not that melee units can now damage enemy ranged units, its that ranged units can now shoot other ranged units. Sniping in no way solves the meat shield problem because the focus is all on the ranged units, ignoring the harmless melee units even if they manage to close the distance to attack ranged units.

Now imagine the same scenario with higher dps melee units: the sniping player ignores the melee units and the melee units kill his army. Now both players need to make a value decision of what unit they want to kill first melee or ranged, as well as whether or not sniping is the best micro they can use, (as opposed to unit control micro). 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

2 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

Now imagine the same scenario with higher dps melee units: the sniping player ignores the melee units and the melee units kill his army. Now both players need to make a value decision of what unit they want to kill first melee or ranged, as well as whether or not sniping is the best micro they can use, (as opposed to unit control micro). 

well said

[chrstgtr]

Again, how does increasing melee's dps and decreasing melee's armor change the meat shield meta instead of just changing how quickly the meat shield dies? How does it change the incentive to have just enough melee units in the middle to absorb damage if melee cannot reach range units, which are dealing dmg. How can melee win fights if players will just spam enough, so that a fight cannot be won in the middle melee?

8 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

People complain because ranged units are far more impactful in battle outcomes

But you aren't changing that! Melee will become more fragile and range will kill melee units quicker. The middle will still be dominated by a spam of units that just exist to die. 

12 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

if instead melee units are winning fights, players will get more melee units, melee units will rank up (because they are doing damage), and players will get upgrades for them.

You can't get to this effect unless you can make the fight something other than spamming units to their death in the middle. Spamming units to their death is just another way to describe a meat shield. 

Right now, we're rearranging numbers without saying how that changes actual play/tactics. 

[chrstgtr]

6 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

Now imagine the same scenario with higher dps melee units: the sniping player ignores the melee units and the melee units kill his army. Now both players need to make a value decision of what unit they want to kill first melee or ranged, as well as whether or not sniping is the best micro they can use, (as opposed to unit control micro). 

 

4 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

well said

No, this doesn't change anything. It just creates an incentive to spam just as many melee units as your enemy and then snipe. That doesn't change the meta. The middle is still a spam pit of death. While the real work that will decide the battle is sniping of range units. That's still a meat shield. 

Edit: the point is to introduce a tactic where units don't just exist to die while range units in the back do the decisive work. 

Edited March 28, 2023 by chrstgtr

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

9 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

How does it change the incentive to have just enough melee units in the middle to absorb damage if melee cannot reach range units, which are dealing dmg

That is a misconception that melee units need to hit ranged units in order to be effective. Also you have to remember that if sniping ranged units is less effective, then players will be able to control their units better, so you could just move some melee units to attack the enemy ranged during a fight.

You are pretending that because melee units can't catch up to ranged units they can't deal any damage and thus overall are only useful for their armor. You have to remember that every unit fights from a stationary position, which means melee units can and will deal damage to ranged units and melee units alike.

9 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

No, this doesn't change anything. It just creates an incentive to spam just as many melee units as your enemy and then snipe. That doesn't change the meta. The middle is still a spam pit of death. While the real work that will decide the battle is sniping of range units. That's still a meat shield. 

You say this as if you have tried or tested the mod, which is very interesting.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

10 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

Again, how does increasing melee's dps and decreasing melee's armor change the meat shield meta instead of just changing how quickly the meat shield dies?

You keep asking this and I keep saying the following:

1. melee units will always die first in a 1:1 with ranged and melee units. this is due to unit AI.

2. I support increasing melee speed.

3. Lastly, increasing melee DPS gives melee units a significant role in beating the meat shield. It CANNOT magically solve the issue, because of point 1. The point is that melee units should be influential in defeating enemy melee units in melee+range battles.

how does this not make sense?

Clearly I am not explaining well, so now lets forget the meat shield, forget unit speeds, forget everything:

is it not problematic that all melee units do less damage than all ranged units? Is it not problematic that nobody prioritizes melee upgrades? Is it not a problem that melee units never rank up? Is it not problematic that pikemen can get 12 pierce armor and up to 15, while taking 5 attacks or 10 seconds to kill a 25 hp woman?

In tests, my proposal addresses all of the above without even talking about the meat shield.

Have you done any tests to back up any claims here? You are always so critical without even testing. Please at least download and do some unit tests. You should be open minded to adding large changes to the community mod because thats how things are actually playtested.

Edited March 28, 2023 by real_tabasco_sauce

[real_tabasco_sauce]

@BreakfastBurrito_007 and I compared sniping scenarios in community mod and "melee" mod.

first, we tested the community mod for a sniping scenario of 30 swordsmen +30 archers in the "sniping" army, and 30 swordsmen + 30 archers in the non-sniping army.

The sniping army won decisively because swordsmen deal similar damage compared to archers. The non-sniping archers tipped the melee battle in favor of the non-sniping swordsmen. The surviving 10 or so non-sniping swordsmen made it to the 30 sniping archers, but died while only killing about half of them.

In the melee mod, the story is quite different. Archers again tip the melee battle in favor of the non-sniping army, and the sniping melee units die quickly to the swordsmen and archers. The remaining swordsmen make it to the sniping archers even while a handful of non-sniping archers still live. The non-sniping swordsmen defeat all the archers quickly, with 8 to 10 remaining.

In conclusion, the melee mod introduced a change in the meta, where melee units are valued in army composition.

Edited March 28, 2023 by real_tabasco_sauce