Close to perfection

TA:K 4.1bb is reasonably balanced generally speaking, but still has a small handful of fatal flaws that really hold this game back from being truly glorious in pvp.

Just some things that, in their current state, are absolutely intolerable:

1. Trebuchets
2. Swamp Beasts in water
3. Freezable Knights
4. Stun weapons that don't work.
5. Air Units that are immune to stun in multiplayer, but not in campaign. What happened there?
6. Veruna, master of the sea, is the second weakest faction on water, only slightly better than Aramon.
7. The Rolling Tower, a wooden siege machine over 10k mana unit in cost, is vulnerable to mind control.
8. Useless Wisps
9. Overpriced units (Rictus, Darkhand)
10. New units inexplicably nerfed to hell in the Crusades Balance (Ballista)

The entire list of changes I propose:

Zhon:

• Fix the Wisps attack!
  

• Increase build time for swamp beast from 160 to 200 and slightly raise cost from 912 to 960
  

Aramon:

• Rolling Towers no longer able to to mind controlled.
  

• Mage Archers stun arrow fixed.
  

• War Galley build time slightly decreased from 338 to 322 (-16)
  

• Knights given immuniy to freezing, like all other cavalry units in the game.
  

Changes to Trebuchet:

• Trebuchet's projectile velocity decreased from 1150 to 550
  

• Reload time increased from 7 to 10
  

• Range decreased from 2700 to 2600
  

• Build time increased from 675 to 975
  

• Damage decreased from 2001 to 1901
  

Veruna:

• Fix useless harpoon so that it can actually shoot things in the water
  

• Increase Ballista range from 650 the 750 and increase velocity from 350 to 650
  

• Build Time for Man of War increased from 185 to 245
  

• Build Time for Harpoon Ship increased from 156 to 192
  

Changes to Sea Trebuchet:

• Trebuchet projectile velocity decreased from 1141 to 540
  

• Reload time increased from 7 to 10
  

• Build time increased from 574 to 704
  

• Damaged decreased from 1845 to 1735
  

Creon:

• Build Time for Navy Yard decreased from 455 to 439 (-16) to compensate for the small change to the War Galley.
  

• Fix the stun weapon for the Chief Engineer.
  

Taros:

• Decrease build time for Rictus from 378 to 303 and decrease cost from 2898 to 2125
  

• Decrease build time for Darkhand from 325 to 265 and decrease cost from 2639 to 2039
  

• Decrease build time for Iron Beak from 302 to 232 and decrease cost from 1563 to 1187
  

Now something that most people aren't going to agree with: Make Dark Hands immune to mind control; its already immune to freezing and stone afterall. This will encourage players to use the DH more offensively and not worry about their unit nearly 3k mana in cost can't be one shotted by one cheese attack from the harpy. This unit could finally have a second role in TvZ and TvC that is completely unique in TA:K.

I don't think this would imbalance either match up as Zhon can counter with Spirit wolves and most Creonite units don't leave corpses to exploit.

Maybe try playing OTAK, not Crusades Balance and see if that works better?

Vhaerun wrote:

Maybe try playing OTAK, not Crusades Balance and see if that works better?

Maybe, but I'll have lots of trouble finding anyone willing to play a game with CB off online

Just for the record. I'm not trying to bash the game. These are just some ideas I have; I could be leaving a lot of other things out of consideration, please let me know if you think I am. Something such as trying to find ideas to rebalance an entire game is not going to be easy. I'd like to give it a shot though.

Wisp fix: https://www.facebook.com/TAKingdoms/videos/10153947240775795/

Agree with almost everything, except the nerf at Veruna's Trebuchet Ship.

I'd like you to take a look at my mod: http://kingdoms.heavenforum.org/t1192-tak-reloaded-mod-downloads
See what you agree there, disagree, that's TA:K perfection for me. (except for some unnecessary things like "Zombies have 1% chance of take the control of the target's mind. Lokken is now able to resurrect zombies from corpses.") Lol That's just some cool things I'd like TA:K to have. :3

I just tried your mod today Deekay, very interesting changes. There's a lot of things I have questions about, but one change really stood out. Now, is it just me or are the units in your mod different? They seem bigger and cant fit into smaller spaces. Was this intended?

Oh yeah, that was me trying to fix stuck units in multiplayer games. (You know when a warrior/melee unit gets inside another warrior/melee unit and they never die? Yes, that annoying thing.) Demonstration:



It finished up messing with pathfinding and strange movement... There are some things I forgot to remove from my mod. lol It's not playable yet (beta), just saw Elsin is building everything so fast...

So, just pay attention in the changes, they may not be balanced yet, some are unnecessary for gameplay or a new patch (I agree) like the verunian shield below *-*. But others are pertinent and need to have a change.



Did you see my aramon catapult and cannoneer units? Yes I made a new 3D model for it, just need animation and the nerfs you mentioned into your post, hehe. (+ reloadtime mainly)

Generally agree with all points of inbalance units

Westerwald wrote:

6. Veruna, master of the sea, is the second weakest faction on water, only slightly better than Aramon.

IMO aramon war galleys are better than man of war, specially if you consider, that they are pretty effective vs swimming units, also they got anti-air archer (weak but still), and can be made by builder, to fast expand,
somewhat sad fact, but we can generally agree that veruna isn't REAL master of water anyway.
On high mana maps, liches, and skyknights can wreack them, on low mana, swimming things.

Quote :

7. The Rolling Tower, a wooden siege machine over 10k mana unit in cost, is vulnerable to mind control.

didn't thought about it, but true totally useless thing, big machine unit controlled by harpy xD

Quote :

9. Overpriced units (Rictus, Darkhand)

Depends, those units are somewhat speciall forces one, IMO they are somewhat rare units, not regular one, but maybe they are too expensive.

Quote :

10. New units inexplicably nerfed to hell in the Crusades Balance (Ballista)

True from OP unit to useless one.

I would add, a too much useless grenadier, specially vs catapult (TIER 4 vs TIER 1) and still in most cases catapult its better.

Vhaerun wrote:

Maybe try playing OTAK, not Crusades Balance and see if that works better?

It is much worse, OTAK has much more problems, almost every unit was too weak/too strong
useless jungle orc (less than 5k health)
OP stone giant (double cost of jungle orc, double health, huge damage, he almost could solo 2 jungles in melee xDD)
OP firedemon (2/3 price of balance version)
OP rush (i mean totally weak towers, but anyway, TIER1 units were too strong vs expensive and long time to build higher TIER units.
OP ballista, but somewhat veruna miss that type of unit in crusade balance.

DeeKay wrote:

Oh yeah, that was me trying to fix stuck units in multiplayer games. (You know when a warrior/melee unit gets inside another warrior/melee unit and they never die? Yes, that annoying thing.)

Yeah that can really negatively impact a game, especially if the player doesn't catch it early to unwind the mess. On the other hand, I found it difficult to drop units with a roc next to enemies; It's like every unit has an invisible bubble around them. But nbd really, maybe this change is for the best.

DeeKay wrote:

Did you see my aramon catapult and cannoneer units? Yes I made a new 3D model for it, just need animation and the nerfs you mentioned into your post, hehe. (+ reloadtime mainly)

I like these cosmetic changes, but I would be okay with just a treb reload nerf. For me the big standout is the Crusaders new shield, very neat looking.

$ MalinOMW wrote:

IMO aramon war galleys are better than man of war, specially if you consider, that they are pretty effective vs swimming units, also they got anti-air archer (weak but still), and can be made by builder, to fast expand,
somewhat sad fact, but we can generally agree that veruna isn't REAL master of water anyway.
On high mana maps, liches, and skyknights can wreack them, on low mana, swimming things.

Yeah I agree. War Galley also have a slightly more parabolic arch trajectory with their cannon balls, which can clear higher obstacles and land into areas that the Man of War and Harpoon Ship can't reach.

I would like to add too that watchtowers and Strongholds on highground coasts or highground islands kill Mer Warriors really easily. You can essentially create a no go zone for swimmers.
As for why the raised altitude make a difference, I really have no clue; that goes way beyond my understanding of the games physics. Maybe I should ask cavedog

$ MalinOMW wrote:

I would add, a too much useless grenadier, specially vs catapult (TIER 4 vs TIER 1) and still in most cases catapult its better.

Maybe if they didn't explode everytime they died I would use them to possibly counter drops with their stun grenade. But even then, Assassin's and mage archers would probably be a better choice. I really don't see any use besides the stun and build glitch that lets you build anywhere you want.

Praise the Sun.

Im the top poster now