Balance poll for R29

[Atrik]

The team is preparing for R29!

Feature freeze for R29 is approaching and we need to decide what balance changes will be merged from the community mod into the game.
Here are a few proposed changes from the community mod and other balancing proposals we are considering, please help by giving your opinion!

From the community mod : 

I didn't list the capture rebalance because it was already polled : https://wildfiregames.com/forum/topic/162972-capture-rebalance-poll/, but you can still share you thoughts if you tested it.


The items that aren't in community mod :

Wall Tower Rebalance https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/pulls/8886

Catafalque Rebalance https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/pulls/8900

Spartan Civilians Stance  https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/pulls/9036

Edited Thursday at 15:05 by Atrik

[Perzival12]

3 hours ago, Atrik said:

Spartan Civilians Stance  https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/pulls/9036

Ooo, happy to see this might finally be merged!

[nifa]

3 hours ago, Atrik said:

Feature freeze for R29 is approaching

Is there already an approximate date for the last chance to include new art?

[Atrik]

2 minutes ago, nifa said:

Is there already an approximate date for the last chance to include new art?

I've been told 30 Nov.

[Asher]

On 13, I think the second part is good, but not the first part

[Atrik]

2 hours ago, Asher said:

On 13, I think the second part is good, but not the first part

The problem it tries to address is that wall towers are always more then 50% of the cost of walling. Can go much higher when you build smaller wall segments.
In compensation they get the shared "Sturdy Foundations" tech with stone towers and the tech is also more effective (give +50% more hp) so basically you can pay for having them at almost same health as before.

Edited Thursday at 21:51 by Atrik

[Asher]

9 minutes ago, Atrik said:

The problem it tries to address is that wall towers are always more then 50% of the cost of walling. Can go much higher when you build smaller wall segments.
In compensation they get the shared "Sturdy Foundations" tech with stone towers and the tech is also more effective (give +50% more hp) so basically you can pay for having them at almost same health as before.

And I guess if you can turret, that would add defense, so that could even it out some. Is there any way for me to change my vote?

[LeJardindEpicure]

I like the propositions but they seem too brutal. I agree we should nerf cav somehow but -15% speed is too much. About garrissoning elephants. Is there a way to make the elephants take 2 garrison spaces ?

Edited Thursday at 22:26 by LeJardindEpicure

[Perzival12]

1 hour ago, LeJardindEpicure said:

I like the propositions but they seem too brutal. I agree we should nerf cav somehow but -15% speed is too much. About garrissoning elephants. Is there a way to make the elephants take 2 garrison spaces ?

Garrison space is measured by population, so an elephant (which is 2-3 pop iirc) takes up as much space as it costs pop.

[ThePoshBarbarian]

1; accidentally voted as IDK, meant to vote yes
2, 3, and 4; yes to all, especially naked fanatics. They're probably the most powerful from the list. Immortals I'm less inclined to agree but then again when I play persians, which is rare already, i just amass a ton of axemen, spearmen, and archers. Not that that makes it an easy win.
5; Voted no, kind of feels a bit cheesy? Like IDK why, just a bit worried.
6; Yes, already too expensive for what it is, and it doesn't have any way to shoot arrows when garrisoned and doesn't expand territory. Will have to see whether the price is reduced enough though.
7; No; I agree with the change to aura range, but not to resistance changes.
8; Yes; axemen should always cost slightly less metal than a sword counterpart.
9; Overall yes, but disagree on the range reduction; Leave range as is, decrease bonus damage from 3 to 2, cost change is good.
10; Yes; foundations are too easy to destroy.
11; Yes; Cavalry does feel too fast, though maybe just a 10% instead of 15%? Could try and balance it on a civ by civ basis, though that would require more work. Eg, good cav civs have less of a nerf, like persians or gauls. Less cavalry centric civs like rome/sparta have a larger nerf. Mostly to try and give them a bit more flavour between different civs.
12; Yes; Champion cav can be way too strong (glares at persians), a nerf to their health would make them less overpowered (in general, not just persians).
13; Yes; Just brings wall towers more in line with how walls work in general.
14; Hesitant yes; I haven't played too much with catafalques, but when I have, especially when you have a high number of them, some of them can make things snowball quickly.
15; Indifferent yes; Isn't that more of a bug fix?

[guerringuerrin]

Thanks for putting this survey together, @Atrik!

Today we had the chance to play a 4v4 TG.

The general impression was that cavalry was way too slow. I would try reducing it to 7.5/8%, half of what it is now, or 10% at most. If not, maybe get rid of acceleration (but i guess that would be a bigger change )

As for the other changes, it's difficult to draw any conclusions from just one match. I played as the Gauls and tried going for fanatics. My impression was that they were still strong (which is nice for the champion unit). However, perhaps the damage reduction is a bit too much, and we could try 10% instead. Regarding armor and HP, I think these changes are positive and might be the way to prevent fanatics from being permanently banned.

I hope we can keep testing more games