Whining about tribes of the east

[Arzang]

I just started playing tribes of the east (a bit late I know. but I was so pissed about H5's suckiness) and I am generally pleased. They fixed a lot of the issues with the original H5 and the game is actually playable now. Before the slowdowns killed me.

but I have two major concerns.
1. why can't you caravan units from your garrison? This would seem like a logical feature to include..
2. I have only played the orc faction and kinda looked at the necro faction but why does it seem that some upgrades are just plain bad compared to their parallell upgrades? I'm thinking the centaur with the melee penalty.

and is there any chance for patches from ubi? seems like they've deserted this franchise. and this game could use some patching up..

whoa, just noticed that there is a patch. will read the log now.

[Asheera]

Well some alternatives are simply superior in all or at least 90% of the cases. The Arcane Archer simply is better in all aspects than the Master Hunter, for instance. Other unbalanced include: Crossbowman (superior to Marksman), Grim Raider (superior to Brisk Raider), High Druid which boosts your spellpower tremendously, Wind Dancer (superior to War Dancer), etc.

And there is a plan for patch 3.2 as well, although there's absolutely no information about its release date.

[Arzang]

that's just weird. because I saw that patch 3.1 was released and thought that meant a lot of improvements. then I realized that they consider tote to be version 3.0, and 3.1 was just a minor increase with no balance increase.

an easy way for them to improve the feelings of you making an important choice would be to give different costs for the upgrades. but playing the orc faction at least I realized the upgrades always cost the same.

seriously, cost is one of the biggest deciding factors when it comes to creatures. just removing this factor would be like giving all the units the same amount of HP.

since it took them what, a year to release 3.1 how long will we have to wait for 3.2?

[Asheera]

that's just weird. because I saw that patch 3.1 was released and thought that meant a lot of improvements. then I realized that they consider tote to be version 3.0, and 3.1 was just a minor increase with no balance increase.

Well the change log doesn't say many things, although the game did change in a lot of aspects.

The triggering chances have changed for most creatures, and also some hero abilities have been improved (like Storm Wind & Fog Veil)

Check out the new 3.1 Fan Manual if you're interested, and also this thread were people have discovered some undocumented changes.

[PhoenixReborn]

What are some balance changes you would make?

[Mirez]

marksman > crossbowman in early game where you can actually abuse snipe ability, in lategame or vs shooters crossbowman are vastly superiour

and indeed, most choises are pretty obvious

[ThunderTitan]

1. why can't you caravan units from your garrison? This would seem like a logical feature to include..

Ubival... 'nuff said!

[Asheera]

Probably because garrisons are rarely used.

And besides, there are some maps with predefined garrisons which are there just to slow down the enemy and certainly not to get you more troops. So that feature would break them.

[PhoenixReborn]

High Druid which boosts your spellpower tremendously,

You never use the elder druid with the lighning bolt? Shocked!

[Asheera]

What's so powerful about their Lightning Bolts? With Luck the normal attack does as much damage early game, and in late game it's even higher because of the logarithmic formula.

[PhoenixReborn]

Creep much with Sylvan?

[Asheera]

Well maybe at creeping they would be better, but still you don't need many (if you do, Lightning Bolt becomes worse than the normal attack anyway, because of the logarithmic formula of the spellpower creature calculation), and so it won't be such a pain retraining them into High Druids when their Lightning Bolt becomes less useful (in the final battle)

[RommeL_666]

Well maybe at creeping they would be better, but still you don't need many (if you do, Lightning Bolt becomes worse than the normal attack anyway, because of the logarithmic formula of the spellpower creature calculation), and so it won't be such a pain retraining them into High Druids when their Lightning Bolt becomes less useful (in the final battle)

I think you should play more with Sylvan before that conclusions. High druids attack is much less then lighting bolt who can help you a lot dealing with enemy weaker units,then breaking them in half and then you still got nice attack without lightining. You cant say they are 100% better if some other has diffrent playing tactics.

[Asheera]

You have a point, I don't play Sylvan much, but then I thought Rain of Arrows + Imbue Arrow + High Druids to boost spellpower to Warlock levels sure sounds scary

[PhoenixReborn]

Anyway Arzang didn't give any examples.

[Arzang]

Probably because garrisons are rarely used.

And besides, there are some maps with predefined garrisons which are there just to slow down the enemy and certainly not to get you more troops. So that feature would break them.

doesn't that just seem like a case of bad design? I mean, they should be able to make garrisons with troops that won't move. and garrisons are used, say you use a creature in the beginning of the game but later on you want to leave them at home just to let them grow. the numbers you had left at home might not be impressive, but it's still a number. and that's not even considering the case where a second hero is defending the base, with the enemy being deterred. later on if you need these units caravaned, you just can't.

Anyway Arzang didn't give any examples.

that's because I haven't visited the boards=). well, I've only played half a game (my installation messed up when I reinstalled it) but I can from the top of my head mention these:
the mauler/monger, executioner/butcher and cyclops options seemed very obvious to me. since I only played one game I can't say much for balance. it's just that the choices felt very given, especially since the bloodrage ability favours the aggressive playstyle. the cyclops on the other hand I can say that for me, I see no reason why anyone would choose the blood eyed cyclops. but hey, maybe that's just me.

I guess when I get the game started I will play sylvan and see what this fuss about the arcane archer is all about..[/quote]

[Asheera]

You'd be surprised to actually find out that the Bloodeyed Cyclops is a lot better than the other one. Don't forget that the Untamed Cyclops' attack hits friendly units as well, and most of the time it is more danger to your army than to the enemy.

[Lord Lakely]

You'd be surprised to actually find out that the Bloodeyed Cyclops is a lot better than the other one. Don't forget that the Untamed Cyclops' attack hits friendly units as well, and most of the time it is more danger to your army than to the enemy.

I don't know ash. I clearly prefer Untamed Cyclopses versus Fortress, Haven, Dungeon and Stronghold. It's simply depends of whether the enemy as Dark Magic... and whether you can maneuver your Untamed out of the way fast.

[Asheera]

I guess you're right but then most factions have a fast acting unit that will possibly strike first at the Untamed and the retaliation will most probably hit your units as well.

Also Untamed may have better damage but it has lower initiative than the Bloodeye one, and we all know Initiative is a very important factor (Ring of Speed + Staff of Netherworld = Deadly combo )

[PhoenixReborn]

My point is that having never even played most of the factions how can you possibly discuss balance and alternate choices?

For example, what's so obvious about the executioner/chief choice?