What user-made factions do you most like?

General feedback and discussion of the game.

Moderator: Forum Moderators

User avatar
Gyra_Solune
Posts: 263
Joined: July 29th, 2015, 5:23 am

Re: What user-made factions do you most like?

Post by Gyra_Solune »

ElderofZion wrote:I like Windsong, back in the days I used to like them very much, I loved the Song of Fire campaign (I actually loved all the 3 campaigns of the series) and I loved playing with windsong there. They are a strong faction and have some unique units like the troll teleporting crystal, the slowing mage and the gatekeeper fist fighting girl but in the end you realize that they are quite straight-forvard.
You just make these defensive gatekeepers, the mages, maybe a few skirmisher seekers and that is how you roll, actually if you want you can just spam gatekeepers and win like that, the mages are interesting but they feel weird since they don't do a lot of damage. I still like them and I really like their lore and concept of them but they are boring. Edit: Now that I look on gatekeeper, for 15 g its definitely op, no wonder they felt so incredibly strong, all the other windsong units pale in comparison to them.
Ehhh, the big problem to me with the gatekeepers is that they're very very slow. They're basically miniature Heavy Infantrymen, substantially cheaper and closer in cost, but they don't resist the most common types of pierce and blade as well - pierce is especially critical because any given faction typically does ranged damage using piercing bows. Heavy Infantry's a specialist, but talking about Gatekeepers like a standard unit immediately compares them to a Dwarvish Fighter. Same MP, but dwarves are faster because they're not at all slowed by hills, mountains, or forests, and have much better evasion in the former, while also having better resistance and a little more flexibility with its multiple damage types (and better net damage on its axe, just barely). The only thing a Gatekeeper has over a Dwarvish Fighter, really, is the counter ability, which, while unique, is about as useful as the Submerge ability on skeletons. On rare occasions you can devise a plan to take advantage of it, but for the most part it's a novelty. You're not going to attack a relatively powerful melee unit with a melee unit too much. The AI is going to just crash into them mindlessly, but an actual player is going to know to pen Gatekeepers in and plink away at them with relatively safe ranged units, since they're so exceptionally slow and can't get away.

Gatekeepers are good at reinforcing a front line, since all of the other Windsong units are so fragile, but they're not good at advancing and surrounding, you really, really rely on the surrounding very flimsy and expensive support units. Scribes are a big help - 5-3 isn't great offensively, but that's an arcane 5-3, a really good damage type, and it's slowing to boot, when most slow attacks are negligible for offense. But they're 21 gold, have an utterly pitiful 26 HP, and no melee to speak of, leaving them extremely vulnerable and prone to dying or being close to death in one attack. That's why I tend to advertise that the Weaver and the Sky Shard are the most important units to the faction. Weavers do a little bit of everything, their ability to heal combined with a decent amount of HP and being okay at both ranges makes them very useful and versatile (the 4-3 melee is weak, but it's better than most ranged units, and is especially noticeable if it gets Strong, making it identical to a Jundi in terms of damage, but with its melee being Cold it's a lot more useful). More importantly, they level up into a solid dual-ranged unit with teleport, an extremely potent strategic advantage that instantly turns one into a major asset in your strategy on its own, or a curehealer with leadership, making for an utterly stellar support unit since most have one or the other. Meanwhile the Sky Shards come stock with teleport, and the value of being able to send a unit to any village you control is a very powerful capability that's excellent to take advantage of on a cheap level 0 unit. They're weak and fragile but stupendously mobile if you're clever with setting up the battlefield to work with a village you control (and really, you could do /worse/ than 6-2 cold at daytime, that's not something you can just ignore suddenly popping out from formerly empty space).
User avatar
Elder2
Posts: 405
Joined: July 11th, 2015, 2:13 pm

Re: What user-made factions do you most like?

Post by Elder2 »

Gyra_Solune wrote:
ElderofZion wrote:I like Windsong, back in the days I used to like them very much, I loved the Song of Fire campaign (I actually loved all the 3 campaigns of the series) and I loved playing with windsong there. They are a strong faction and have some unique units like the troll teleporting crystal, the slowing mage and the gatekeeper fist fighting girl but in the end you realize that they are quite straight-forvard.
You just make these defensive gatekeepers, the mages, maybe a few skirmisher seekers and that is how you roll, actually if you want you can just spam gatekeepers and win like that, the mages are interesting but they feel weird since they don't do a lot of damage. I still like them and I really like their lore and concept of them but they are boring. Edit: Now that I look on gatekeeper, for 15 g its definitely op, no wonder they felt so incredibly strong, all the other windsong units pale in comparison to them.
Ehhh, the big problem to me with the gatekeepers is that they're very very slow. They're basically miniature Heavy Infantrymen, substantially cheaper and closer in cost, but they don't resist the most common types of pierce and blade as well - pierce is especially critical because any given faction typically does ranged damage using piercing bows. Heavy Infantry's a specialist, but talking about Gatekeepers like a standard unit immediately compares them to a Dwarvish Fighter. Same MP, but dwarves are faster because they're not at all slowed by hills, mountains, or forests, and have much better evasion in the former, while also having better resistance and a little more flexibility with its multiple damage types (and better net damage on its axe, just barely). The only thing a Gatekeeper has over a Dwarvish Fighter, really, is the counter ability, which, while unique, is about as useful as the Submerge ability on skeletons. On rare occasions you can devise a plan to take advantage of it, but for the most part it's a novelty. You're not going to attack a relatively powerful melee unit with a melee unit too much. The AI is going to just crash into them mindlessly, but an actual player is going to know to pen Gatekeepers in and plink away at them with relatively safe ranged units, since they're so exceptionally slow and can't get away.

Gatekeepers are good at reinforcing a front line, since all of the other Windsong units are so fragile, but they're not good at advancing and surrounding, you really, really rely on the surrounding very flimsy and expensive support units. Scribes are a big help - 5-3 isn't great offensively, but that's an arcane 5-3, a really good damage type, and it's slowing to boot, when most slow attacks are negligible for offense. But they're 21 gold, have an utterly pitiful 26 HP, and no melee to speak of, leaving them extremely vulnerable and prone to dying or being close to death in one attack. That's why I tend to advertise that the Weaver and the Sky Shard are the most important units to the faction. Weavers do a little bit of everything, their ability to heal combined with a decent amount of HP and being okay at both ranges makes them very useful and versatile (the 4-3 melee is weak, but it's better than most ranged units, and is especially noticeable if it gets Strong, making it identical to a Jundi in terms of damage, but with its melee being Cold it's a lot more useful). More importantly, they level up into a solid dual-ranged unit with teleport, an extremely potent strategic advantage that instantly turns one into a major asset in your strategy on its own, or a curehealer with leadership, making for an utterly stellar support unit since most have one or the other. Meanwhile the Sky Shards come stock with teleport, and the value of being able to send a unit to any village you control is a very powerful capability that's excellent to take advantage of on a cheap level 0 unit. They're weak and fragile but stupendously mobile if you're clever with setting up the battlefield to work with a village you control (and really, you could do /worse/ than 6-2 cold at daytime, that's not something you can just ignore suddenly popping out from formerly empty space).

Thank you for your points, hm, right they do indeed have 4 mp but they have human foot movement so they arent nearly as immobile as heavy infantry. I think that 4 mp isn't that significant since every other of their stats seems just so incredibly good for 15 g. They have 38 hp which is above average, they have a decent 5-4 attack but it also has a 60% on defense special so its a bit stronger than a standard attack. But most importantly they have 20% pierce, blade and impact resistance, its like a whole tier up when it comes to their survavibility, they haven ormal defenses but 20% resistances this makes them very resillient. I think compared to default they seem op, compared to ageless they seem very good and i think they would be able to take on most of the units they would face even in ageless thanks to the impact damage which generally works on a greater deal of units than pierce or blade I think.

Comparing them to dwarf fighter gatekeeper will perform better in villages, in castle, on flat and in forests which i think already makes them stronger than dwarf fighters, being so strong on flat alone is a huge thing. Dwarf fighter in turn if we ignore their 10% magic resistance (its not that big of a deal) the only advantage it would have I think is an advantage on hills and mountains. On top of that they cost 1g less, their somewhat a bit worse mobility isnt that big of a deal if you can get more of them than dwarf fighters.

I think I would in most cases attack with gatekeepers anything that doesnt have impact resistance because I believe it would be cost effective, I have faith in my gatekeepers being able to outrtrade most of the units thanks to the resistances.

Scribes just feel weird, like I said magical slow is an interesting idea but they are expensive and dont deal a lot of damage, and arcane being a great type of damage is debatable, I thin people can overvalue arcane since its a comparatively rare type of damage while effectively it does reduced damage to human units which compile a large part of ageless units, and only a few unit types have vulnerability to arcane. And even if you do make use of the vulnerability 5-3dmg +x% from vulnerability is still gonna be a pretty low amount.

About the weavers, I like them but i feel like they are just not amazing compared to the gatekeepers, they are just good, they do have pierce ranged attack, 9-2 its good, the mele attack is decent heal is good, all for 18g, yeah they are good and I usually would make a few of them if i can afford, but they don't feel exceptional like gatekeepers do, and also they have - resistances to blade and impact I just noticed. Its a bit like chosing between bowman and spearman when you are playing loyalist, just why not spam spears? The lvl 2 is good and teleportation is also good but well I think you still end up with a teleporting units, gatekeepers and occasionally scribes, the gameplay is not that special or interesting.

Yeah the sky shard is good because of its teleport it can be sometimes useful and very fun, teleportation is one of the most powerful abilities in wesnoth, but the shard is rather weak and even if you do manage to use teleportation its really not that potent. I haven't felt it being that useful though I really hoped it would be, a bit of a disappointment, still i think they are great. I think if i managed to make a lot of them they would be a real nuisance if i was playing against a real player xD
I think you may have more experience playing windsong than I do, to really know how would they perform vs a real player you would have to test them vs one and I never did.

I think I don't really want to argue about ageless balance, this is just my opinion about windsong, I don't particularly care about ageless balance and I think its impossible to perfectly balance it.
Rodrom
Posts: 41
Joined: March 4th, 2017, 7:00 am
Location: Reach me here: Orwell64123@gmail.com

Re: What user-made factions do you most like?

Post by Rodrom »

I'm working on a new multiplayer era myself. I'm really interested to know more about the more popular factions and why those in particular are interesting to use.
User avatar
Zap-Zarap
Posts: 159
Joined: March 16th, 2015, 2:18 pm

Re: What user-made factions do you most like?

Post by Zap-Zarap »

I didn't play all factions, that are in ageless, yet. But so far, the ones i liked most are :
Devlings, because the have those really humourful drawings (e.g. the ones, that show one climbed up onto the shoulders of a second one, to appear a taller and stronger person :lol: , very funny).
Chaos Empire, the many different lines of advancement for Deamons are interesting.
Dalefolk, because i generally enjoy playing factions, that no-one else likes to play with (bless the underdogs). The Rocketeers artillery weapon type is nice. And, above all, the Shifters are awesome. Especially when in their Beaver-Shape. I like beavers. :)
Khthon, the whole idea of enthrallment and vectoring is very interesting, and the animal sprites are just lovely (especially the skirmish horse line), one small esthetic detail i dislike a little bit,are the blueish color of the thralls and their huge 1000xp-bar, that somehow hurt my eyes and make playing them a little bit less enjoyable.
I like beavers.
Trayanee
Posts: 33
Joined: January 29th, 2017, 12:26 pm

Re: What user-made factions do you most like?

Post by Trayanee »

I like many of the factions in Ageless like Destroyers, Kthon, Aragwaithi and Minotaurs, but If I had to pick one, it would be probably Yokai for their unique art style and unit variety. The only downside is the lack of advancements for some unit trees which limits the use in Orocia etc...
Post Reply