Suggestion for Enraged

[Medicine_Man_55]

Hola folks,

I'm not sure if more tweaking of the enraged status is on your to-do list, but I wanted to pop in and make a few suggestions regarding it. I agree with some of the other posters here, that the current version of enraged is a step in the right direction -- it makes a unit unpredictable but is not necessarily a death sentence.

I also agree with the sentiment that the new enraged pretty much hoses lunatics, drastically reduces the value of Duin Halfmorn, and turns the emergence of the Avatar of Wrath into a micro-intensive, demented carnival ride. The new implementation also renders the rank 1 Law spell, loyalty, obsolete.

With these things in mind, might I suggest the following things for the next incarnation of the enraged promotion?

* Change the Enraged promotion: You retain control of your unit but the unit has a 10-25% chance of gaining the berserk promotion every turn. Winning a combat removes the enraged promotion.

* Implement the Berserk promotion: The unit gets +1 attack power, + 1 movement, and has a 10% change each turn of becoming a barbarian unit every turn. The berserk promotion places the unit under AI control the way the current enraged promo does. Winning a combat removes the berserk promotion.

With this implementation you return loyalty to some usefulness (it should boost resistance to dominate too, but that's another thread) and restores some of the original functionality to Duin/Avatar of Wrath. It also makes an enraged unit not a total loss. Best of all, you could make berserkers start with the enraged promotion under this model, without rendering the unit a complete burden.

Thoughts?

 

[Sarisin]

First, I'm wondering why you didn't just put this in the already ongoing thread on this topic?

I think you summarized the problems perfectly.

However, I'm not seeing what Loyalty does in your suggestion.

Also, are you saying replace Enraged with a new promotion called Berserk?

I think you have the right idea of having something, anything, that returns control back to the player and not leaving it up to the bizarre AI to win that first battle to lose the Enraged.

 

[[NWO]_Valis]

No, he proposes a two step model.

Crazed gives enraged witch gives Berserk. You have a slight chance to get rid of the enraged promo by attacking, if not it will go Berserk and then barbarian. Loyality would stop it to go barb when berserk.

Am I getting this right?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

My proposal:

1. Have Enraged work as it does now, but also have about a 1% chance of making a unit turn Barbarian and about a 1% chance of wearing off on its own.

2. Add a Spirit spell ("Calm") that removes Enraged from all units (regard of who owns them) either on that tile or within a 1 tile range. If this is made Spirit II instead of Spirit I it might be ok to remove Crazed too. In that case, the Hope building should probably be nerfed and moved to Spirit I.

3. Make Berserkers (and UUs thereof) start with Crazed.

4. Remove the Loyalty promotion and spell.

5. Move Valor down to Law I.

6. Either make Unyielding Order be a Law III spell and give Priors something else (like Pillar of Fire, which Chalid really doesn't need), or make a new Banish spell (which directly kills demons and maybe some other evil units, but can be resisted) for Law III.

 

[Sarisin]

I like all of these.

So, you're saying that having a crazed/enraged unit get a combat victory as a requirement to lose the promotion is not included? Good.

Your ideas for Ravenous Werewolves as well, then?

I could see Spirit becoming the most important Mana in the game, especially for Armageddon events with Calm and Courage. I'm assuming you leave Courage at Spirit I, right and have Calm at Spirit II?

I especially like moving Valor to Law I to give units a chance to exceed the 100 XP threshold killing barbs.

 

[notque]

I'd prefer we just find a fix for it to affect the ai and leave it the way it is.

 

[Fafnir13]

Lets' just not have you lose control of your units, all right? That's all I care about.

 

[Dux_]

Lets' just not have you lose control of your units, all right? That's all I care about.

Agreed!!!!

 

[Medicine_Man_55]

No, he proposes a two step model.

Crazed gives enraged witch gives Berserk. You have a slight chance to get rid of the enraged promo by attacking, if not it will go Berserk and then barbarian. Loyality would stop it to go barb when berserk.

Am I getting this right?

Yeah, that's right.

With one caveat -- you don't have to start with crazed to get enraged. Lots of things can make a unit enraged without also making it crazed. This is actually how the game works now I think. Crazed is definitely the worse of the two "promotions" though, as it will periodically make your unit enraged again.

Basically Enraged works as the old version of itself did, except that instead of having a chance of making your unit go barbarian, it has a chance of making your unit go berserk. The berserk promotion has a chance of making your unit go barbarian. The loyalty promotion will make a unit die rather than go barbarian.

Bottom line though... I'm not sure what Kael and company have in mind for enraged. I'm sure they're not done with it yet but I don't know what direction they wish to go with it.

 

[Medicine_Man_55]

First, I'm wondering why you didn't just put this in the already ongoing thread on this topic?

Short answer: I'm lazy and didn't look for an existing topic.


One other thing I'd like to add: I wish a small % of units would go barbarian immediately when the Avatar of Wrath comes out and teleport to his location -- like the good old days. That sounds like such a cool event.

 

[Sarisin]

Basically Enraged works as the old version of itself did, except that instead of having a chance of making your unit go barbarian, it has a chance of making your unit go berserk. The berserk promotion has a chance of making your unit go barbarian. The loyalty promotion will make a unit die rather than go barbarian.

Bottom line though... I'm not sure what Kael and company have in mind for enraged. I'm sure they're not done with it yet but I don't know what direction they wish to go with it.

So, you're saying if your unit already has Loyalty and gets Enraged and then progresses to Berserk, it will possibly just die?

What would be the usage of Loyalty then? It doesn't sound like it does anything good and has the potential to be really bad.

I see this scenario.

AC 90 hits.

A bunch of living units (I think it is around half) get Enraged.

Next turn some of them get Berserk.

Next turn some die.

I'm just having trouble seeing where Loyalty fits in here. Do you want to give Loyalty anywhere in the process, or just sit back and see who dies?

I like the Magister's suggestion of having Calm as a Spirit II spell to avoid units from dying.

 

[Grey Fox]

Lets' just not have you lose control of your units, all right? That's all I care about.

Why not? That's what crazed should do in my opinion. It's not working well at the moment, though.

I like some of the suggestions in this thread. I like the idea of the Berserk promotion and the chance of the unit to turn Barbarian.

I want to keep the unit becoming AI controlled, though I want it to be much more aggressive. Here's a suggestion based on the first post:

• The chance for a Crazed unit to become Enraged every turn should be quite high to keep things interesting. You should not be able to rely on a Crazed unit staying calm. Something like 30-50% chance.
• But you should be able to benefit from it going enraged, like before and now, with movement and strength bonus.
• 25% or so for the Enraged to calm down. 25-50% or so to go Berserk. A small chance to go barbarian, 1-3%.
• Once in Berserk mode, you can't control the unit, it behaves very aggressively. And becomes calm after a victory. (It's still Crazed if it started with it).
• In Berserk mode the unit has a chance to become barbarian every turn, 10% or so.

This makes Loyalty useful again as suggested in the first post. And makes Crazed quite unreliable as it should be. I also like Magister's suggestion of making Berserkers start with Crazed. Don't think we need to mess with the spirit and law spells at this moment.

 

[notque]

Does any of it matter until the AI is fixed so that Enraged matters to them? (or Berserk in the separate idea path)

 

[Sarisin]

Why not? That's what crazed should do in my opinion. It's not working well at the moment, though.

I like some of the suggestions in this thread. I like the idea of the Berserk promotion and the chance of the unit to turn Barbarian.

I want to keep the unit becoming AI controlled, though I want it to be much more aggressive. Here's a suggestion based on the first post:

• The chance for a Crazed unit to become Enraged every turn should be quite high to keep things interesting. You should not be able to rely on a Crazed unit staying calm. Something like 30-50% chance.
• But you should be able to benefit from it going enraged, like before and now, with movement and strength bonus.
• 25% or so for the Enraged to calm down. 25-50% or so to go Berserk. A small chance to go barbarian, 1-3%.
• Once in Berserk mode, you can't control the unit, it behaves very aggressively. And becomes calm after a victory. (It's still Crazed if it started with it).
• In Berserk mode the unit has a chance to become barbarian every turn, 10% or so.

This makes Loyalty useful again as suggested in the first post. And makes Crazed quite unreliable as it should be. I also like Magister's suggestion of making Berserkers start with Crazed. Don't think we need to mess with the spirit and law spells at this moment.

Why not? I think you need to see how the AI performs when it has control of your units. I gave several examples where the AI ignored easy targets only to be killed by stronger ones. That's not crazed, that's stupid.

It isn't working very well at all - I agree with you. I think the player needs some control and should be able to devise a strategy of dealing with it rather than leaving it to the AI and just chance. Again, one unit here or there, no big deal (unless it happens to be one of your powerful units), but on a mass scale it is just broken. I think everyone agrees with that.

Your list has some good suggestions. Don't Enraged units suffer a defending penalty though? It seemed that way to me.

I think if you have to choose between adding a completely new 'status' of Berserk or changing what a spell does, the latter would be easier for the developers. That's why I go with making the Spirit II spell calm the units so you can control them for awhile anyway and then go out and try to lose the Enraged promotion.

If the Berserker gets the Crazed promotion, and it does fit, you would have to think twice before building one of these moderately powerful guys with the possibility he turns on you in short order.

I don't know, it just seems to me we are back to square one on this and just having Loyalty do what it did before would solve everything. I know the AI would be screwed (but they seem unaffected by this anyway) and some would say it is just a robotic task to go through giving all your units Loyalty before AC 90. But, isn't that pretty much what you do with Courage before the Horsemen arrive?

 

[Grey Fox]

As I said, it's not working well atm. The crazed units need to be aggressive, so they are useful. If the units attacks, its useful. If it just wanders around or fortifies in a city it is not. (And the AI's units should be affected just like ours, with a specific unit AI on crazed units)

As I see it, you have a choice to use crazed units in most cases. Build a lunatic and you know what you get. Build an Asylum and you (should) know what you get. Some mutated units can go both ways, you always have a choice to delete crazed units.
The AC 90 effect should be annoying, and you should lose most of your units. Maybe even get into a few wars you weren't in before.

 

[Fafnir13]

As I said, it's not working well atm. The crazed units need to be aggressive, so they are useful. If the units attacks, its useful.

As a generalization, quite wrong I'm afraid. An attacking unit can easily be and is more often the exact opposite of useful. Unless we're talking about a highly promoted unit with crazed, we're just talking about a random fodder unit attacking a well defended location without the support of a stack. That's just giving the defender free xp.
And if it does win, it's still out there without a stack for support. The weakened victor will then die, wasting the xp gained from killing the defender and giving xp to whoever killed it.
Randomly dispersed units accomplish nothing.

Hence why I suggested maintaining control of movement but not attack in my other thread:

No more wandering units. That just bights. Instead, make them attack any non-owner unit within 1 tile. For even more fun, they do not attack the stacks chief defender. They attack randomly. The enraged promotion retains move and attack bonus as well as the old school chance to turn barbarian. This accomplishes several things.

Feel free to comment on it in the other thread.

As I see it, you have a choice to use crazed units in most cases. Build a lunatic and you know what you get. Build an Asylum and you (should) know what you get. Some mutated units can go both ways, you always have a choice to delete crazed units.

And my choice will always be to delete the units and never, ever build anything that comes with crazed. What fun.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

@GreyFox: AC90 should be challening, not annoying. annoying means it's not fun, and people play games to have fun, not to be annoyed

 

[Fafnir13]

Amen to that.

 

[Medicine_Man_55]

So, you're saying if your unit already has Loyalty and gets Enraged and then progresses to Berserk, it will possibly just die?

What would be the usage of Loyalty then? It doesn't sound like it does anything good and has the potential to be really bad.

Actually, to be perfectly honest I have never used the loyalty spell to prevent units from going barbarian from the old enraged promo. My impression was that loyalty just removed the unit if it was going to go barbarian. If it in fact prevented the unit from dying or turning, then I can see how it was a useful spell.

I can also see why Kael is re-working the enraged promotion (I hope he's still in the process of re-working it to). I think it kinda defeats the purpose of the buff if you can eliminate the risks of enraged by using a certain kind of mana. If that is the case, then enraged becomes just like another helpful buff, like bronze weapons or enchanted weapons.

Personally, I think the only thing that should be able to remove enraged is a successful combat. This means that by voluntarily getting a unit enraged, you are committing to exposing the unit to risk. I just think the current mechanic needs some kind of grace period before the player loses control of the unit.

 

[Vitek]

Enraged has to have some drawbacks (And with old system it had none) and it seems logical to me that you can't control enraged unit. They are controlled by their rage after all. I agree it need some improvements but only small one. Something like Calmness spell simillar to one mentioned here, but which is casted before Enraged and gives chance to resist Enraging to prevent it from such mass scale.
Someone speaking of units doing nothing becaous eno war waws going on gave me nice idea on using it with Svartalfar and Veil of Night or with CoE.