The Fate of the Moroi

[Kael]

K, I need a pretty quick responce to this since Im going to wrap it in todays version. Should the Moroi:

1. Not have the Burning Blood ability?
2. Have the Burning Blood ability but be unable to upgrade to vampires?

The only other option is to create a new ability just like burning blood for them but I don't want to do that. Let me know (right now Im leaning toward the second option).

 

[loki1232]

I vote for the second option. But they will still be able to get vampirism, right?
Also, will they be allowed to be upgraded into Vampire Lords later in the game?

 

[Kael]

I vote for the second option. But they will still be able to get vampirism, right?

Yes

Also, will they be allowed to be upgraded into Vampire Lords later in the game?

No. If we block Moroi from Vampires we break the entire bloodpet to vampire lord train.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

I'd rather keep the upgrade path intact than give them the burning blood ability.

 

[QES]

GAH! nono! Moroi need to be able to upgrade. The PURPOSE of playing the cabalim is vampires, people love em.

I know you said you dont want the third (and unlisted) option, but honestly i think a non-burning blood option is needed. Burning blood seems more beserkerish and orcish anyway.

Why not an ability that heals them after battle, as though they got a promotion (but didnt?). That means they can keep fighting, feeding on their enemies after a fight (if they survive). And its a minor bump but an important one.
-Qes

EDIT: Each promotion heals what, a third of the life? That'd be enough to make the moroi different, useful, and perpetual. When they upgrade, they'd no longer have the ability, naturally.

EDIT2: Or like the lifespark, you could make it a specific amount, say 40 hp/life? But only after WINNING the fight.

 

[tyrantpimp]

I never use the burning blood ability, why would i want them to die. Big waste. I vote option three they need a new trait.

 

[Sureshot]

ya keeping the upgrade path is important, and moroi are the only 'early' vampiric unit. they need some special ability, since without burning blood they're just an axeman.. maybe give them some lifestealing combat ability?

 

[loki1232]

I actually like blocking the melee path from upgrading to Vampire lords. It shows the segregation of calabim society nicely.

Moroi's should definetly keep burning blood. Aeron is the patron of berserkers, but also of the calabim.

However, I would do a semi-overhaul on the calabim melee units to show the segregation better.
Change the spearman unit to a gaurd Thrull, and give him the bloodpet ability.
Make the berserkers into Aeron's Faithful, and when one of level 15 or higher with vampirism dies, it has a 50% chance to be reborn as a basic vampire, but keeping its promotions and levels. This way it is possible for a melee unit to end up as a vampire lord, just unlikely.
The Sheildwall becomes Bloodgaurds, and get a +20% defense bonus and +50% defense chance when defending a stack with a vampire (or vamp lord) on it.
The sparatori can be kept be same, but perhaps they should be able to burning blood themselves if they want, even if not upgraded from a moroi.
The brujah's would be the macemen, since brujah is a more generic name, while Aeron's faithful is connected to their ability.

 

[Halancar]

Moroi are the only unit I ever used Burning Blood with. After all, since they are the backbone of the army, they are going to get into fights they expect to lose (storming the wall of a city come to mind), and Burning Blood makes sure they sell their lives for what they are worth.
On the other hand, who would use Burning Blood on a caster ? Those that are actually strong enough to be used as melee are not what you want to use as cannon fodder.

Or is there a unit using Burning Blood that I missed ?

 

[QES]

I actually like blocking the melee path from upgrading to Vampire lords. It shows the segregation of calabim society nicely.

Moroi's should definetly keep burning blood. Aeron is the patron of berserkers, but also of the calabim.

However, I would do a semi-overhaul on the calabim melee units to show the segregation better.
Change the spearman unit to a gaurd Thrull, and give him the bloodpet ability.
Make the berserkers into Aeron's Faithful, and when one of level 15 or higher with vampirism dies, it has a 50% chance to be reborn as a basic vampire, but keeping its promotions and levels. This way it is possible for a melee unit to end up as a vampire lord, just unlikely.
The Sheildwall becomes Bloodgaurds, and get a +20% defense bonus and +50% defense chance when defending a stack with a vampire (or vamp lord) on it.
The sparatori can be kept be same, but perhaps they should be able to burning blood themselves if they want, even if not upgraded from a moroi.
The brujah's would be the macemen, since brujah is a more generic name, while Aeron's faithful is connected to their ability.

I dont mind the idea of sepearting the vampires to be, from the servants of vampiredom. But then each should have an appropriate line of abilites associated with it. If you had your servant line (moroi and berserker examples) these should always represent this particular tactical mentality. Where as vampires and (pre-vampires) should show inclinations of their particular train of existance. Vampires and Pre-vampires and the like should be harder to kill, there should be fewer of them around, and they should have powers akin to their lineage. Maybe make Moroi have some sort of pre-vampire cousin. Moroi could be the Berserk type unit of that era, and maybe a unit like "The Damned" could be the vampire - upgradeable cousin. The Damned could have the "self heal" or bloodpet qualities.

Bloodpets themselves should be able to then upgrade to either.
-Qes

 

[Silverkiss]

I agree whit Loki´s ideas... It would great to see the Calabim even more fleshed out

 

[QES]

Maybe it would be possible to make vampires and their line demi-heros? National units with max caps over 3 - maybe 7 or 10? They should be individually very powerful and convey bonuses onto other units. But not in themselves be heros. Then the "servants" of the vampire kingdom can be your massed units. Moroi could keep their blood burn, there should be some Mace-man equivilant etc.

Vampires mayhap should also be broken down into 3 tiers, instead of only 2. They could over lap in tier two with the servant line.
Blood Pet -> Moroi -> Thrall (Maceman) -> Berserker
Blood Pet -> Bloodspawn(Axeman) -> Vampire -> Vampire Lord

Moroi and Thrall and Berserker would be your mass mainline army units. With burning blood type tactics.
Bloodspawn, Vampire and Vampire Lords would be your support/command/semi-magical units. And perhaps make them national units with higher than standard limits. Bloodspawn max 10? Vampires Max 7? Vampire Lords max 4?

Bloodspawn Might be a hard hitting unit that feeds on Moroi to gain strength.
Vampires may Be able to feed, and Gain health after wining a combat (lifespark)
Vampire Lords should be given the "Dominate" spell for free, and be immortal.

-Qes

EDIT: Also an idea, is that whenever a Vampire or Vampire Lord is in a city, that city gains 1 Free "Vampire Govenor" in that city. Cool aristocratic representation.

 

[tyrantpimp]

sigh, i havent played the calabim in a few days. Still brooding over the vampire lord implementation. I thought of the vamp lord as being a unique unit that you only got 1 of, immortal yet still bound. Story for another day i suppose.

 

[Sareln]

Make a change to the Moroii and we'll play it to death to figure out if it's good , I mean, that's what we're here for right? On the "national unit" thing for vampires, would it be possible to cap the number of vampires = number of cities? or something similar?

 

[eerr]

why can't they just lose burning blood when they upgrade into vampires?

 

[tyrantpimp]

Theres alot of vampire nerfing happening already why caps? Just lop off something extra and call it a day. Im opposed to caps on regular vampires. Booooooo!

 

[QES]

Theres alot of vampire nerfing happening already why caps? Just lop off something extra and call it a day. Im opposed to caps on regular vampires. Booooooo!

Lol, I am also advocating making them more powerful. The vampire would become a rarer unit and the thrall the main unit, but the vampire would be more powerful than the thrall.

ALSO, i think that use of the servant units and the vampire units should be conjunction, like a team. Having a vampire with stack of thralls make the thralls better, and protect the vampire from bum rushing, they work together. But like Loki said, there is distinct lines between the social classes.
-Qes

 

[Silverkiss]

Misa likey

 

[MrUnderhill]

What about adding an exception to the "Gift Vampirism" ability, like the Drown?

It would let a Lv.4 Moroi become a full-fledged Vampire, but strip away the Divine promotion and the ability to use Burning Blood. It'll also make it harder to just upgrade bloodpets to vampires, as you'll need some combat experience along with an existing vampire.

 

[Kael]

why can't they just lose burning blood when they upgrade into vampires?

Because the way the engine works the units is created, OnUnitCreated runs, and then the merge takes place. So I could remove the promotion in OnUnitCreated but it gets put right back on.

Of course I could make an SDK change to handle this, but then again just about anything could be specifically addressed in the SDK and I typically dont like to exception handle in the SDK.