Jump to content

Proposed PvE Campaign Map Changes


WindHunter

Recommended Posts

Unpopular Opinion: The wrath of the souls should be buffed on Expert.

On 8/29/2021 at 9:31 PM, wanky said:

y true, the dmg is like nonscese...until u have a squad Troup or lack of orbs and still t1-2. There u get massiv dmg after a while

I think it is flat-damage that increases a bit over time. So if you fall behind, your T1/2 units get crushed, but the increase is not to a point that it matters at all for T3/4 units. The problem with this map is, at its current state there is almost no reason to keep it a 12-player map. Basically the only connection between the maps that matters is "waiting till the others finish" (shrines or harbingers). If this stays as it is, you should convert it to 4-player-map and be done with it.

Besides complete overhauls, all we have is the Wrath of the Souls as a tool to deepen the connection between the maps, which is of no real importance right now, in 99% of the cases its completly ignored - even if one of Map 1 disconnects and it would be useful to take it off them, most of the times still nobody cares.

I would buff the damage to a point where it is a burden, although not one that crushes the map it is on. But especially if Map 1 really falls behind of any other reason, I would like to see a "Can some other map take the Wrath?" in the chat. I'm thinking a good balancing point would be that once it gained strengh, it should hurt T3 units too, so the Map it is on has a harder time advancing from T3 to T4 you can feel. If its easily compensated by nature players (wheels regeneration, fountain etc) or stuff like unity (G) thats totally fine, but right now it is NOTHING.

I would hope that it would make the map not much, but a little more interesting, while still keeping its "newbies can hop aboard with no knowledge"-profile.

Edited by Kapo
Metagross31 likes this
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Kapo said:

Unpopular Opinion: The wrath of the souls should be buffed on Expert.

I think it is flat-damage that increases a bit over time. So if you fall behind, your T1/2 units get crushed, but the increase is not to a point that it matters at all for T3/4 units. The problem with this map is, at its current state there is almost no reason to keep it a 12-player map. Basically the only connection between the maps that matters is "waiting till the others finish" (shrines or harbingers). If this stays as it is, you should convert it to 4-player-map and be done with it.

Besides complete overhauls, all we have is the Wrath of the Souls as a tool to deepen the connection between the maps, which is of no real importance right now, in 99% of the cases its completly ignored - even if one of Map 1 disconnects and it would be useful to take it off them, most of the times still nobody cares.

I would buff the damage to a point where it is a burden, although not one that crushes the map it is on. But especially if Map 1 really falls behind of any other reason, I would like to see a "Can some other map take the Wrath?" in the chat. I'm thinking a good balancing point would be that once it gained strengh, it should hurt T3 units too, so the Map it is on has a harder time advancing from T3 to T4 you can feel. If its easily compensated by nature players (wheels regeneration, fountain etc) or stuff like unity (G) thats totally fine, but right now it is NOTHING.

I would hope that it would make the map not much, but a little more interesting, while still keeping its "newbies can hop aboard with no knowledge"-profile.

I fully agree with you. To be honest, I only learned what the "wrath of the souls" actually does a few weeks ago, eventhough I have played BF since the early EA days.
I even think it could be buffed by a substantial amount, such that the map functions similar to sunbridge; one map has the wrath on it, so they can't really advance that well and should focus on defense and hold their positions while the others make progress.

 

Also, here are some general thoughts on the proposed changes:

Ascension:
I generally like them, but what about the Lightblade bug on map2? Shouldn't that be considered an exploit too?

Convoy:
I like the removal of the blocking, but increasing the walker amount to 5 is maybe making it too easy. As some people before me already stated, expert maps should really be tough, so leaving it at 3 or maybe 4 walkers should be fine.
Additionally, I think it should be considered, whether it should be possible to reach the middle part all together, since you could still use scythe fiends to get in there and use your units to support the walkers, which would defy the purpose of the map.
Lastly, the gate-warping. One simple fix for that would be to only spawn the final boss, once the power shrine has fallen. But that might cause the Wrath of the Speedrunners to come to your map. But to be fair, I have not yet had any issues with people gate-warping in casual play, so this might not be that big of an issue.

Crusade:
I love the idea of the additional secret boss! Also, that it is tied to an achievement. But I would love to have an incentive to kill him more often than once. Maybe, with an objective based rewarding system for XP, as it has been discussed before, would achieve just that. (Such a system could also be a step towards fixing Bad Harvest farm runs.)
The triggering of the final wave seems fine to me; to be honest, that is probably only something top speedrunners will care about, since in casual runs you are slower most of the times (at least when playing with me lol).

Defending Hope / Siege of Hope:
I kind of like the fact, that the times no longer have a lower limit. Also, more gold chests are always great! 🙂

Empire:
First of all, fixing bugs is always great! Also, I like the idea of making the two timelines interact more with each other, f.e. via the kobold engineers. Tbh, this is another one of these situations, where I don't even know how exactly the mechanics work, because I see it in use so seldomly.

Encounters with twilight:
Love it!

King of the Giants:
Timer: Great addition! Artifacts: Love the idea! So far the only one I sometimes use it the one, which casts eruptions around it, to clear stonekin units lol. Midwinter: Yes, please give her some love! Maybe make it, so she can be freed before going over the last gate? This way she can already start clearing stuff. But then she would still need some more bulkyness and a speedbuff (Edit: I just played the map and saw, that it actually is quite fast. But since the players are usually rushing ahead, it still doesn't do anything. Maybe just beef up the final stretch by a lot?), so she doesn't die in the first camp or get left behind right after the first camp.
And again: Gate-warping anyone?

Nightmare Shard:
Starting Well pool increase: Yeah, why not. Lowering the difficulty on standard might be fine, but I think advanced and expert can stay a bit tougher. Same for the first camp; Mana Wings, Mine, Frostmage, Roots+mass WW etc. seem like several decent options. And as people mentioned before, this might encourage people to cooperate more or go out of the standard path and go to the second camp first.

Nightmare's End:
Starting Well pool: Yeah, why not. Starting void pool: 100 might be fine, but 200 might be a bit too much. And as stated by some people before, the idea of not destroying the shrines is very counterintuitive, when the game tells you to destroy them. So I agree that this change is not really necessary.

Ocean:
Removing chests: I get the idea of standardizing the chest count on all maps, but I always liked how you can scout out all of the islands to find some gold chests. Makes you feel like a real pirate 🙂 So maybe having extra gold chests as the additional things to find on the optional islands isn't that far-fetched. Also, Dropship counter shown ingame is a great addition!

Oracle:
I like the idea, that succeeding the ritual gives a reward / failing it punishes you. But as someone already mentioned, if the fire units aren't worth it and only crowd your unit limit, people might now intentionally fail the ritual. Maybe make it punishing to mess it up by enemy units or - even better - make the spell devices overload, casting freeze, damage spells etc. (whatever is involved in the ritual) on your own units?

Sunbride:
Eventhough I find the gateswitch bug kind of iconic and I am almost a bit nostalgic for it, it is probably still better, if it is gone. Adjusting the difficulty of the first bigger wave might be a good compensation for it then.

The Dwarven Riddle:
I like the proposed ideas, but I also do not have any great ideas on how to prevent the solo-carry strat without making severe changes to the map. But in the end - similar strats can probably be done on most multiplayer maps, it is up to the players though, whether they do them.

The Guns of Lyr:
I am all for the fix of the southern flame and the blocking mechanic. I am not 100% sure yet about what to do about clearing the final base over the wall, but I am not too confident in how the spawning mechanisms on this map work to have a clear opinion on it.

The insane God:
I like the idea of buffing the own priests, as I have never really felt that it was worth it to get them.

The Soultree:
Amii Monument?

The Treasure Fleet:
Like the idea. And I would also be interested in how much time this actually saves. Also, you would need to make sure, that you can't switch the path of the wagon midway, as a means to shortcut from the blue to the red path in the middle section. Also, can the wagons get zapped away by the twilight evil eye, that is patroling before the top left camp?

Titans:
The thing with the rituals and the shamans is another thing, that is so irrelevant, I don't even know what it is doing. So giving it some purpose sounds good! Unblocking Journe also seems good, as this can usually be done to trivialize the job of the top right position. Also, giving pos 3 another job sounds cool!

Some more thoughts on Passage to darkness:
The bossfight seems like a very cool ending to this map. Maybe, to increase the connection between the maps, it could be handled similarly to the Raven's End or Empire Bossfight, where the Boss is really really bulky and ports from map 1 to 2 and 3 after getting a certain amount of damage, while the other maps get to fight adds and a super beefed up wrath of the souls.

 

So, these are some of my thoughts on the proposals. Most of it has already been stated, but maybe some of the ideas are new 🙂

Edited by Metagross31
Ultralord likes this
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 8/30/2021 at 10:02 PM, Draconnor said:

About Bad Harvest 

Bonus - making feedrun a bit harder would be nice.

many suggestions have been made in the past to make the BH speedrun more difficult. One of these suggestions was to give the end boss more life. I for one consider the BH speedrun to be the most popular element of this game. The video on youtube with the Frennzy is still one of the most popular videos what has the topic Battleforge. to remove this I personally feel as wrong, but see definitely need to act against the gold and XP farmers to proceed. This can be solved but as already mentioned easier via a reward system, than over years worked, heavy, shared speedruns to destroy. 

As a side note: Smallest changes in maps open up new ways to create niche tactics that may be even faster. Some of the maps were not invested a lot of time, and if you sit longer on it, because it was changed, you may find something new that is even faster than the old speedrun. Could simply also lead to new farmers. 

On 8/31/2021 at 11:43 AM, Metagross31 said:

Ascension:
I generally like them, but what about the Lightblade bug on map2? Shouldn't that be considered an exploit too?

i do not rly see this as exploid

besides, there are already a few players who can do map 2. However, the CC on viridia is more of a problem. Even if you use all possible CC there is in the game, in between using slow, you only manage to stop viridia in time if she does not take the shortest way. Knockback also works, but often viridia comes the first time when many are still t2. This leads to the fact that almost all play the same tactics, often probably aggressor, but what I've also often seen how viridia was thrown in the direction of the aggressors and then simply swept away by the DOnnersturm. Taunts are almost the best way to stop viridia. But know apart from light blade only grad Grinder free from the head. But Grinder is t4, needs 4 fixed orbs, and costs quite a bit of energy. Until you have reached that viridia jorne has already killed 3 times 😄

Apart from that has the light blade only very laboriously slowly rumrumges that it works, which has led to the fact that many players ignore the map completely and do not play the fail rate (probably) is quite high, which can possibly confirm a dev.

btw, a change that viridia does not run so long I personally find also not good. Since it is then almost too easy, if you can only use a CC and the thing is eaten. "light blade must also be clicked only 1 time" - YES, but man must first come into range, if it is, for example 1/4 of the map away, this is already herausvorderung enough. Spells you can but almost on the whole map schiken because the players are nicely distributed on the map.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry if this came ober the wrong way. I do not want to make her untauntable in general, but only remove the fact, that she is still frozen after the taunt. It could be made for example, that she will chase the lightblade for as long as the taunt is active and afterwards run back to her path and only then continue running towards the goal. This way, together with other CCs such as freeze and slow, you can still buy a lot of time, but it is a little bit more engaging, because you have to micro your lightblade away from her instead of just clicking once and then the whole mechanic of the encounter is frozen for ~2min.

Changing the timer on exp might be something to consider as well, if it turns out to be just too difficult, but I also like the idea of Ascension being a kind of "final boss" map on expert, being the most difficult, since it is also the conclusion to the whole Virydia story line.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can understand both sides very well here at Ascension Map 2.
On the one hand, of course, it feels completely wrong that a taunt stops Viridya endlessly, and on the other hand, the map already fails sooooo often that I'm skeptical to change this.

For a long time I have often gladly supported Ascension groups, also out of the thought that new players do not have the feeling to play a dead game. On the other hand, I find myself doing this less and less, because I notice in the lobbies that I annoy people with the desire to coordinate us on Map2 - but am annoyed myself that it just constantly fails because then someone is there who does not know the task. Just 1-2 weeks ago again I have not managed 3 attempts in a row because Map2 failed - that makes me then little fun.

In conclusion, I would almost say that I think that a further increase in the level of difficulty here is not purposeful.

 

 

PS: And please, please, don't misunderstand, I know some here think I'm an elitist. Far be it from me to say: "You don't know Map 2, then please leave" - of course you have to take the time to explain the mechanics. Unfortunately, I find that many players simply do not want to develop here

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Edited by Volin
Dutchy likes this
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Volin said:

, I know some here think I'm an elitist.

From my point of view. In this game, you could call yourself Elite without a problem. When I joined, I found especially those at the top very welcoming, helpful and more then willing to share their time and knowledge.

From what I observed, those guys who are "kicking noobs" are not the same then the top-players.

Volin and Dutchy like this
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Volin said:

I can understand both sides very well here at Ascension Map 2.
On the one hand, of course, it feels completely wrong that a taunt stops Viridya endlessly, and on the other hand, the map already fails sooooo often that I'm skeptical to change this.

For a long time I have often gladly supported Ascension groups, also out of the thought that new players do not have the feeling to play a dead game. On the other hand, I find myself doing this less and less, because I notice in the lobbies that I annoy people with the desire to coordinate us on Map2 - but am annoyed myself that it just constantly fails because then someone is there who does not know the task. Just 1-2 weeks ago again I have not managed 3 attempts in a row because Map2 failed - that makes me then little fun.

In conclusion, I would almost say that I think that a further increase in the level of difficulty here is not purposeful.

 

 

PS: And please, please, don't misunderstand, I know some here think I'm an elitist. Far be it from me to say: "You don't know Map 2, then please leave" - of course you have to take the time to explain the mechanics. Unfortunately, I find that many players simply do not want to develop here

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Your concerns are valid. In general, these are all reasons that all types of CC should work on Viridya. I have seen so many people try to oink or root Viridya. It is just not intuitive at all what works and what doesn't. In the discord i wrote that taunting should not work on Viridya. But it was meant that after the time runs out Viridya can run again. The fact that Viridya stops forever when casting the ability is simply a bug for me.

But i think the most important thing is to create clarity about the CC issue in general. I think that would help everyone the most.

Edited by Blashyrkh
Volin likes this
Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, Volin said:

S: And please, please, don't misunderstand, I know some here think I'm an elitist. Far be it from me to say: "You don't know Map 2, then please leave" - of course you have to take the time to explain the mechanics. Unfortunately, I find that many players simply do not want to develop here

first of all, you are certainly one of the top 10% PVE players, so you don't have to hide at all. 

I can speak for our group when I say that we always try to share tactics in the mass that simplify maps like asc map 2. Things like light blade for map 2 is so far essential to know so that the map can be completed successfully. 
It is also important that not only one knows what to do on map2. Have also often tried a complete team to act solo, depending on where the viridia go the first time you are just more or less powerless. Especially if no one even runs close to her in SPellrange.

Furthermore, I meet again and again on map 2 players with the attitude: Was not my lane, player xyz has failed. Blaim him.
In my opinion, these are simply people who have not understood the game. Should be clear to everyone that Skylords is a TEAM game. 

Regarding the Taunt fix: I find the suggestion to set the taunt correctly good. But have great fear that extremely many people do not master the micro viridia to keep at a distance, new taunt to apply (or CC spells) and paralel to deal with the guard. I claim now from nowehere that either viridia is suddenly out of range, or your own orbs overrun because you are ~2min busy with viridia.  

 

What would help is that ALL CC spells are effective on her, including oink and root. 
However, when casting in succession, the CC duration is always shorter, so that without voidback quickly times the energy could be scarce for some players.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hello everyone, I am here to share my thoughts as well.

First of all I would like to say that I love Battleforge/Skylords Reborn (mainly its PVE) for two main reasons: the uniqueness, as it presents many distinctive elements such as Power Wells/Orbs and the Void mechanism, and the versatility of the game, in the sense that it can be played in thousands different ways. Therefore, I agree with any change that increase the number of ways a map is played, both in a "casual-run" perspective (such as the extra bosses on Crusade and Passage to Darkness and the new Priests mechanics in Insane God) and in a speedrunning perspective. Concerning this last category I am very excited about the proposed changes in Crusade, Siege of Hope and Defending Hope as removing the "fixed time thresholds" will surely increase the interests on said maps and open up new strategies; I am also a bit surprised that there are no such proposals on Titans (as e.g. Jorne could spawn once the 12 civilians are rescued).

On the other hand, I feel like some proposed changes (both in the document and in the comments of this post) go in the opposite direction, removing ways a certain map is played. The most prominent example in this sense are the proposed changes in Guns of Lyr. Removing the possibility to build any structure at the map borders will inevitably kill many strategies that are currently used. I do not fully understand the rationale behind those proposals; ok, I recognize that some players find "lame" using certain tricks, but nobody is forcing them to use those. Guns of Lyr can still be played "as intended" even if there is the possibility to block incoming waves, as the two ways to play the map are not mutually exclusive.

See you in the Forge,

Donaar

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Disclaimer: The following thoughts are from me as a player, not me as a community manager or representation of the Skylords Reborn team.

In general, I'm against making the game easier and in favor of removing map abuse. People complain about the lack of new maps/content all the time, yet we see mainstream map abuse or weird interactions that clearly should not work, resulting in maps being way easier than they should be. This again results in people ''completing'' the game at a faster phase, which is not helpful for player retention. Now I'm not saying every map needs to be insanely hard, but there can definitely be a few hard ones that requires a few restarts. 

My favorite memories of the game include struggling with my friends on a hard map, slowly gaining more knowledge and skill to complete it. The game has plenty of maps, so especially the ones that are unlocked late in the game and don't block any other maps can be harder to complete without scaring people away. We should also keep in mind that the game has an expert mode for a reason. Making expert maps easy because newer players are struggling makes little sense to me, we already have standard and advanced for those players. In my opinion, expert should embrace the idea of the map, challenge you in a good way, and assume you have a decent collection. 

Convoy
Convoy is clearly one of the harder maps, and the one I was struggling with the most. I think it took me two nights with my friend to complete, but it still holds a fond memory. I think getting rid of the abuse is a good thing, but I disagree that the number of walkers have to go from 3 to 5. 

Suggestion:
- Remove walker trapping and other tricks that can get you into the canyon (which is clearly not intended in the map design)
- Keep the number of bandit walkers the same


Crusade + Defending Hope
I like these changes. 


Empire
Empire was the last map added to the game, and it shows. The idea is cool, but it is still completely unclear to me which side is supposed to be the past, and which one is supposed to be the present. The fact that the side quest with Kobold Engineers and Midwinter doesnt really do anything does not help. 

Suggestion:
- Agree with the suggestions
- Maybe make it more clear which side is past, which is present, and how things actually impact each other.

Encounters with Twilight
I like these changes


King of the Giants
I agree with all suggestions. 


Nightmare Shard
I'm against making expert maps easier, but if newer players indeed do struggle on standard, I'm all in favor of making Standard easier. 
I do think the map can be a bit tedious with its low power. However, increasing starting well capacity does not help with that. I'm more in favor of suggestion 4 (increasing void power to get slightly faster start). 


Nightmares End
I actually would prefer to see this swapped the other way: make it so you have to destroy the power shrine to build the orb. Since the map is already quite long, I'm not against speeding the early game up a bit by adding some void power.


Ocean
No strong opinion on this map, except that it feels like there is too much going on that does not actually do anything for you. This was especially visible on the speedrunnig contest of Toggy, where you can just skip huge parts of the map.


Oracle
Flavor wise it makes no sense that the ritual doesn't do anything, so I'm in favor of this.


Siege of Hope
Don't have a strong opinion on this one. I remember playing it the first time and thinking it was insanely hard, but it has a good learning curve and is definitely playable. 


Slavemaster
I never ran into this issue, but it can be long map so I'm not against these changes.


Sunbridge
It makes absolutely no sense that advanced is harder on expert on this map. I'm hugely in favor of getting rid of the switch abuse. I'm also in favor of making the boss fight harder, since by then you already dominated the map, and its currently no challenge at all. I'm not really in favor for swapping the dragon with Abomination, but it's something I can live with. 


The Dwarven Riddle
I'm not really sure how I feel about adding a 4th orb. I never felt it was needed on this map, and it's part of the charm that some players fill a more supporting role. 


The guns of Lyr
Guns of Lyr on expert is a very hard map if you don't trick it, but very satisfying to play with some friends. I'm all in favor of removing all map abuse here.
 

The Insane God
The transformed priest does feel a little bit lackluster, but it still has very decent stats. I don't think it needs to be changed, but a strong burrowers wall spit sounds like a cool idea.


The Soulstree
I agree with these changes


The Treasure Fleet
This one is actually one of my favorite maps (without exploits). Adding another fun challenge to it, without impacting the nostalgia or making it easier, sounds very cool to me!


Titans
Sounds like good changes to me.


On closing notes, I'm also in favor of removing Nightguards Ability to take control of units she is clearly not meant to swap with. This also makes some maps way easier than they should be. Part of the charm of BattleForge is finding ways to beat certain challenges. Nightguard is one of those one-size-fits-all problem solvers that clearly is not meant to be used like this. 

 

Metagross31 likes this
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 9/1/2021 at 11:35 PM, wanky said:

many suggestions have been made in the past to make the BH speedrun more difficult. One of these suggestions was to give the end boss more life. I for one consider the BH speedrun to be the most popular element of this game. The video on youtube with the Frennzy is still one of the most popular videos what has the topic Battleforge. to remove this I personally feel as wrong, but see definitely need to act against the gold and XP farmers to proceed. This can be solved but as already mentioned easier via a reward system, than over years worked, heavy, shared speedruns to destroy. 

As a side note: Smallest changes in maps open up new ways to create niche tactics that may be even faster. Some of the maps were not invested a lot of time, and if you sit longer on it, because it was changed, you may find something new that is even faster than the old speedrun. Could simply also lead to new farmers.

and what do you think about my main suggestion to add any reason/reward to go to the right side above the wagon?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Even in the old days, matchmarking on Ascension map2 was a nightmare. I played hundreds of runs, since that map is my all time favourite. I could play it all day literally non stop

But I do not remember any other map where you have to be so strict and rigid to check the decks on map2.

You have to have taunt/ cc or basicly 11 people will fail eventually in 99% of time. (It is even more depressing with lower playerbase in current days)

Since opening up game space on map1 is already suggested, I wonder if we can open the deckstyle for map2 as well a bit

- The straight up way it to make more spells able to interact with Viridya,

But this would still limit non-cc having classes

- Out of the box idea of making it possible to stop Viridya via other methods , like when she took X amount of damage in X amount of time

 This would open up chance to be played for pure fire for example 

- Changing the behaviour of Viridya, making her slower, predictable etc

I personally do not like this approach since the map is already not that hard, only too restrictive in deck bringing imo

I do not want it to be an other PTD where people can literally bring random decks and still win, but some non-frost/cc fresh air would be nice

Overall great changes, love how we evolved from barely able to run the client to make our own map change choices together !

Majora likes this
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hello everyone,

I want to thank everyone for the feedback so far. I have been enjoying reading the discussions and seeing what everyone has to say. We as a team have decided to create individual forum threads for each map so we can focus the discussion. We will also be including a bit more information on our plans at that time, especially in relation to map rewards. I am hoping to get this done sometime this week but no promises as I just started up school again and a few other things internally have taken priority for me time-wise.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, T1421 said:

@WindHunter should we repost our ideas / thoughts / suggestions in the new topics? (Mabye a bit more compressed?)

If you'd like that would be helpful. It can also be the basis for starting up the discussion on that map. In this thread it was kind of hard to have full discussions people were understandly attempting to respond to all proposed changes in one post.

Ultralord likes this
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. Terms of Use