Headshot/Vital-areas-shot damage (implemented for buildings and ranged units)

[Jofursloft]

I think that in this alpha there are still some units who need to be buffed or nerfed, such as:

• Archers (except champions) who seem to not be anymore affective against any kind of pike shield and melee cavarly (especially sword one), which makes them practically unuseful in late game (especially in games with a 300 pop cap);

• Consular bodyguard: in my opinion this unit is not counterable by any kind of other unit in the game when attacking a player base. You just need to have 15/20 of them to completely destroy the enemy eco (no point for the enemy to have soldiers near to the cc to protect the fields or even walls or palizades, which can be easily destroyed by them);

• Heroes: I expressed my thoughts in the topic here: https://wildfiregames.com/forum/topic/51406-dancing-lowering-heroes-health-adding-headshot-damage/

I think that one way to “easily” balance this is to implement a headshot/vital-areas-shot damage. It is 1) Realistic, because in real life an arrow can hit a leg, an armour or a vital area 2) Useful in game, because it can be a counter against all the op units mentioned before. 

This damage would not be applied only to ranged units but also to buildings (maybe not all, I think this kind of damage is needed especially for the civic centres).

-> I think the damage should not be a instant kill but a hit that cuts down something like a 60/70% of the enemy unit health points.

Here are some idea how it could work: 

• By percentage. An example could be: 
  • Archers: 20% chance
  • Slingers: 15% chance
  • Skirms: 10% chance
  • Buildings: 30% chance
• A rechargeable damage. I don't like the idea of having a bar that recharges after a definite amount of time (just because if you have an army of many ranged units with all this damage recharged would be op). I would like this to be rechargeable in proportion to the effective hits the unit succesfully gets. An example could be: 
  • Archers: rechargeable every 10 hits
  • Slingers: rechargeable every 13 hits
  • Skirms: rechargeable every 16 hits
  • Buildings: rechargeable every 8 hits

[PyrrhicVictoryGuy]

So you want units that have a critical attack that can be used once every Y successful hits? Much like the greek heroes in AOM.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

On 20/08/2021 at 6:17 AM, PyrrhicVictoryGuy said:

So you want units that have a critical attack that can be used once every Y successful hits? Much like the greek heroes in AOM.

One thing I'd like to ape from AOM, besides the brilliant minor god system, would be Arkantos' "battle cry" ability. Would be a great feature for heroes in general, or for specific heroes. The Einherjar horn for a noise maker unit would be awesome: think Celtic Carnyx players, Greek Aulos, etc.

 

 

Edited August 24, 2021 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[PyrrhicVictoryGuy]

3 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

One thing I'd like to ape from AOM, besides the brilliant minor god system, would be Arkantos' "battle cry" ability. Would be a great feature for heroes in general, or for specific heroes. The Einherjar horn for a noise maker unit would be awesome: think Celtic Carnyx players, Greek Aulos, etc.

 

 

Arkantos makes them attack faster right? Anyway AOM is a different beast entirely, there u can win with hoplites + hippikons and some hetairoi, try that here.

[Player of 0AD]

I don't think we need any further mechanics which are based on luck

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

7 hours ago, PyrrhicVictoryGuy said:

Anyway AOM is a different beast entirely, there u can win with hoplites + hippikons and some hetairoi, try that here

That's only because of stats, not mechanics.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

On 20/08/2021 at 12:17 AM, Jofursloft said:

60/70%

I think we would probably need to be careful with how much damage it does per unit. 

We could probably also adjust this per unit. For example we could assign the critical damage to be 5% for eles since you would not want to lose 600 hp from one lucky skirmisher. 

I think this could be a great way to adequately nerf champions, especially cavalry champions. However, I think before this is added we would need to be extremely careful deciding which values to use. It is frustrating to see 0 enemy champs killed while they raid.

You did forget one class of ranged units in your percentage chart: crossbows.

Crossbows have a low rate of fire, but do large damage and are very accurate. They would need a slower recharge time, like 5 shots. 

Important things:

Critical damage should never be lower than the regular damage dealt by the unit.  For example, if a crossbowman shoots a skirmisher and does 60% damage from critical hit, this could be less than the regular damage given to the skirmisher. Or, if any unit hits a woman. Or we could choose women lose 100% health for critical XD?.

Also, the numbers need to be tweaked so that there is great uniformity in gameplay and we do not see erratic or rage-inducing RNG results. See monks from AoE2.