[BALANCE] 0.80 Sovereign starting professions

from Elemental Forums

When creating a new sovereign, it feels like some starting professions are just always the obvious choices. Would it be possible to tweak the professions a bit to make all of the choices interesting and viable?

Adventurer: (double fame for quests)

The bonus is weak because it is difficult to find a use for so many heroes. I suggest that Adventurer could also affect the XP slip as well and allow for the grouping of two heroes in the same army without XP loss. The effects of fame could also be buffed. For example, every 50-100 fame could grant +1 growth in your capital.

Bandit Lord: (two bandit units and ability to convert more)

With the new starting units, the two extra units given by Bandit Lord do not contribute much. Furthermore, the bandit units on the map are rather weak, which makes the skill pale in comparison with other options. The problem could be solved by creating some more powerful bandit units for us to convert.

Diplomat: (+30% value in trades and silver tongue)

This ability feels slightly weak. In practice additional military strength seems to be much more important for diplomacy with the AI than this ability. However, I can't think of a suitable buff.

Hunter: (+50% attack vs beasts)

This is rather weak in comparison with Beast Lord. I would much rather capture beasts than get a +50% attack bonus against them.

Summoner: (+2 levels to summons and Shadow warg summon ability)

The summoning spells in the mage tree feel pretty good to me, but the Summoner special doesn't contribute much with only 2 bonus levels and the weak Shadow Warg summon. The problem could be solved by buffing the Shadow Warg or giving Summoner a further bonus like +1 movement speed for all summoned units.

Warlord: (-50% to unit wages)

This is a weak bonus because typically unit wages are not the limiting factor in how many units I can get. Rather, the limiting factor is training time and resource cost. If this bonus is meant to make it possible for us to field large armies, make it provide a -25% discount to unit training costs instead.

Armorer: (+25% to defense)

This ability is OK.

Beastlord: (Ability to tame beasts)

Awesome ability, probably the best choice. The free beasts really help in leveling up heroes fast and tackling otherwise impossible mobs. Coupled with spell mastery perks like Brilliance means that beasts will rarely resist taming. My favourite combo is to combine Beast Master with the summoning spells from the Mage tree and the free elementals from the Resoln special. This means that I won't have to train any units until late game.

My hope is that all of the abilities could be made as awesome as Beast Lord, rather than nerfing Beast Lord.

General: (+25% to unit experience)

This ability is OK, a balanced bonus.

Noble: (-5% to unrest)

A really weak ability. A -5 to unrest is a weak bonus and also rather boring as it doesn't allow one to do much anything. A -30 to unrest would be more in line with the power of the other abilities and would allow for some different strategies.

Warlock: (+50% spell damage)

A 50% bonus to spell damage is too much and imbalances the whole spell system. With Warlock, damaging spells do OK damage, but coupled with all the spell damage buffs it becomes too much. A +25% bonus to spell damage together with some cool new spell would be far better. For example, how about a spell to buff your spell mastery by 25% for the duration of one combat.

 

What do you all think?

44,091 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Bandit Lord: (two bandit units and ability to convert more) With the new starting units, the two extra units given by Bandit Lord do not contribute much. Furthermore, the bandit units on the map are rather weak, which makes the skill pale in comparison with other options. The problem could be solved by creating some more powerful bandit units for us to convert.

I think this would go a long way if we could steal money from the other factions with this ability (sacrifice bandit get 75 gold). Or if you get +5 gildar from every goodie hut.

Diplomat: (+30% value in trades and silver tongue)
This ability feels slightly weak. In practice additional military strength seems to be much more important for diplomacy with the AI than this ability. However, I can't think of a suitable buff.

You are really underestimating the silver tongue ability here. You are able to take enemy troops and build a very good army from their troops.

Hunter: (+50% attack vs beasts) This is rather weak in comparison with Beast Lord. I would much rather capture beasts than get a +50% attack bonus against them.

I agree with this... This trait should also include +50% attack vs. Wildlands (or maybe Dragons). This will still fit within the Hunter theme... just a dragon hunter or a titan hunter.

Noble: (-5% to unrest) A really weak ability. A -5 to unrest is a weak bonus and also rather boring as it doesn't allow one to do much anything. A -30 to unrest would be more in line with the power of the other abilities and would allow for some different strategies.

If you going to dream big... how about number of city unrest is 2% instead of 3% (or maybe 1%) on top of the general 5% bonus.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

What do you all think?

I think that you have made great suggestions how the professions should be improved and this improvement is VERY important, because, as you said, the power level differences between the professions are huge (bandit lord vs. warlock) and this hurts the player and the AI.

Another solution would be to remove the professions at the sovereign creation and replace them with the path of the assassin, the path of the commander, the path of the defender, the path of the mage and the path of the warrior.

The professions should be abilities of the different paths:

- Assassin: Hunter (+ 25 % damage against non-humanoids) and bandit lord (summons a group of bandits)

- Commander: Silver tongue

- Defender: Warlord (- 25 % unit wages)

- Mage: Summon shadow warg

- Warrior: Beastlord

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

 some random comments:

- i think you underestimate warlord. -50% wages is huge, especially in the early game when you don't have several high level towns creating tons of cash. later on, you probably want more than one fortress, so you can actually have neough units for the bonus to be noticeable

- if i'm not mistaken, summoner also gives you a buff increases the attack of all summoned units by 50%. at least, last time i played paride, procipinee had that buff and i didn't actually have any summoner traits from the mage path, so i assume the buff is from the profession (please correct me if that's not the case

- noble used to be -5% unrest and +1 prestige - and it was already rather weak back then. it's one of those traits that wasn't updated to the new system yet. i guess an additional civilization/city based bonus wold make it useful (faster growth in all cities, lower "per city unrest", more production per material or something along those lines)

- not sure what to make of bandit lord. seems very weak. could be a fun perk if you could flag your trained units as "bandits" and use them to ravage your opponents outposts and improvements or burn down some cities without having to declare war. probably easy to exploit, but sounds like fun :)

- hunter is probably ok in concept, but, as parrotmath said, it would be a lot more competitive if it also granted a bonus vs. other creature types. they could use the "ranger" class from D&D as an inspiration - in one iteration of the ruleset, rangers started with one arch enemy and could pick additional arch enemies (i think that's what they were called) at higher levels. perhaps you get to choose another class of enemies when your sov hits certain level capstones and then your faction would also get a bonus vs. elementals, twisted, dragons, undead or whatever you choose

- i suggested the "reduced /removed XP split" for the adventurers profession a while back. i still think that would be a nice idea

 

 

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Doh, I thought I posted this in the LH support forum. I will make a new post there and incorporate your suggestions. Thanks for the good comments! Please put further replies here where they will be more visible:

https://forums.elementalgame.com/443068/page/1/

You are really underestimating the silver tongue ability here. You are able to take enemy troops and build a very good army from their troops.


I stand corrected - the Silver Tongue ability does make Diplomat OK. Once the AI learns how to make good units it will be even better :).

 

- if i'm not mistaken, summoner also gives you a buff increases the attack of all summoned units by 50%. at least, last time i played paride, procipinee had that buff and i didn't actually have any summoner traits from the mage path, so i assume the buff is from the profession (please correct me if that's not the case


I have played with the summoner trait several times and have not seen this.

 

- i think you underestimate warlord. -50% wages is huge, especially in the early game when you don't have several high level towns creating tons of cash. later on, you probably want more than one fortress, so you can actually have neough units for the bonus to be noticeable

Here I still disagree. In my experience, the limiting factor for the number of units is the cost in materials and production time rather than gold. There's so many ways to get lots of cash anyway early on, and I will really have to build a lot of units to get even 200 gold of use out of this ability in the early game. Maybe it's a difference in playstyle.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Well I intended to make professions review as well, but you made it first, so lets discuss it :)

In my humble opinion, sovereign profession should give you an opportunity for a different playstyle (maybe even force you to different playstyle?). CERTAINLY NOT give you just some bland bonus of 0.5 % or 1.5 % to something.

 

Rather few professions of current set may pass this test. I will start with the least troubling.

  • Beastlord
    • Excellent and creative choice. Gives an escellent opportunity to different playstyle, maybe needs just some spice for late game (i.e. beastlord II trait - enables to tame twisted or even (III) dragons?). DEFINITELY NOT NERF IT.
  • Diplomat
    • Nice profession as well. No remarks, maybe only the diplomacy bonus needs to be bigger?

 

Now lets move onto average professions. These will give you visible bonuses, but will not provide an entirely new opportunities to your playstyle.

  • Bandit lord
    • Nice try, but definitely needs work. Two units and bandit converting are fine first step for the early game, but we need to make the second for the middle and possibly even third for the late game. How about adding ability for units to raid the caravans (gives you gildar)? Myabe even automate command, like explore. And late game ability to make cash out of every caravan going through my territory? As I said, nice try, but this one needs work.
  • Armorer
    • Gives nice bonus, but otherwise is little bland. As it is currently, one will allways want to use best armor, regardless of armor bonus. How about giving armorer (1) discount to armor training and (2) unique set of late game training? And possible penalty to dodge, to spice things up?
  • General
    • Again, nice bonus, but thats it. No other opportunities, or pros vs cons. How about adding initiative bonus as well? With some interesting commander ability?
  • Warlock
    • Strong bonus that precedes mage path. Why there is not some noc going with that? I.e. (brainstorming) mundane units cost mana upkeep (or double gildar upkeep)? So you are forced to rely more on magic?
  • Summoner
    • Huge potential, definitely needs work! Apart from current benefits, why not adding to ability to summon not one, but two creatures of every kind. So you could have two wargs, fire elemental etc.? Now that could really open interesting possibilities!

 

And finally, lets move for the last group, consisting of, eh, "weakly designed" professions.

  • Adventurer
    • Weak and bland bonus, needs buff at least. Eliminating xp split, however, would make this much more interesting choice. That would really enable to create deadly parties of legendary heroes:)
  • Hunter
    • Nice try, but weak and not much useful. How about giving hunters some uniqe gear (bow) and double xp from killing beasts and other creeps? Now that would make the hunt finally very important. I would suggest some terrain bonuses as well, but since SD does not (sadly) want to follow this direction... :)
  • Noble
    • This is a joke, right? Exactly fullfiles my definition of blandness and absence of flavor.
    • At least give these guys substantial unrest reducing bonus (aka - 25%) BUT give them also population cost for every mundane units. So they have low unrest to train units BUT because they are few of nobel ancestry, every trained unit drains i.e. 10 population? Or 5? But current state of Noble is just a bit... shameful for such epic game :)

 

So these are my 2 cents so far...curious about possible SD response!

 

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Azunai_, reply 3
if i'm not mistaken, summoner also gives you a buff increases the attack of all summoned units by 50%. at least, last time i played paride, procipinee had that buff and i didn't actually have any summoner traits from the mage path, so i assume the buff is from the profession (please correct me if that's not the case

Sadly it is only possible to get summoners boon as a quest reward, but it should be in the mage tree.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Azunai_, reply 3
 - if i'm not mistaken, summoner also gives you a buff increases the attack of all summoned units by 50%. at least, last time i played paride, procipinee had that buff and i didn't actually have any summoner traits from the mage path, so i assume the buff is from the profession (please correct me if that's not the case

Summoner doesn't increase damage of summoned units, however, there is a spell (Summoner's Boon) which is a quest reward that does exactly that. It "might" only show up in games where you have a summoner sov though, seeing as it auto-targeted Procipinee when I casted it.