The problem with the conquest gamemode and the land battle fix proposal

Reply
Copied to clipboard!
4 days ago
Jun 25, 2024, 6:02:47 PM

  While definitely a step in a right direction in terms of stopping the draw kiting and corner camping, the new gamemode has created a few severe balance issues/tactics that are rather problematic.
One of the biggest balance problems is the fact that the capture point unlocks after only 1 minute. Why is it bad?
- it seriously hinders the possibility of the tactical manouvers done with slower units such huntsmen or dwarf rangers

- it nerfs the artillery pretty hard since you cannot focus on defending your good position; instead you are forced to send a majority of your army to contest the point as soon as possible while leaving artillery units rather weakly defended. If you choose to defend the artillery, the enemies will simply capture the point and then block you with swarms of cheap infantry
- skirmish units become a lot more weaker, as they will struggle to defeat hordes upon hordes of cheap infantry designed to contest the point

- elite infantry gets a significtant nerf because instead of paying for 1 unit of hammerers, I can recruit several units of miners/dwarf warriors and sit them on the point since it will take very long time for the elite units to deal with them

- abilities which allow for faster WoM recharge quickly become too strong because they let you clear the point with AoE magic much much faster

- the game de-evolves into fast rush towards the point with little regard towards the more complex and time consuming tactics such as baiting enemy into ambush/faking retreat/weakening the enemy force with the skirmish tactics

- expendable/cheap/durable infantry become very strong because all that they have to do is to cap the point and hold it. They do not need to win the fight, they don't need to deal damage and there is little strategy invloved in making an army mostly filled with cheapest and most durable infantry possible and then just capping and blocking the point

- elite based factions will struggle to deal enough damage  fast enough to defeat factions based on cheap infantry, durable units and access to good healing

- factions with access to the large hp pool, low cost, high defense/armor units will be very favoured here

- blobbing is absurdly overpowered because in order to capture the point from monster blob you have to contest it with multiple units at same time which enables the player using blobbing as strategy to just cast a spell and destroy several units of your infantry in one cast with vortex spells.

 If you ignore the blob, it caps the point. If you send units one by one they will win because both of the fact that a single unit cannot defeat a monster blob + point will still get capped. If you send multiple units to contest a single spell/mortis engine will wipe them out. On normal land battle this strategy is not as strong because you can bring more artillery/ranged infantry/skirmishers/spells like final transmutations to deal with it. Here, it's going to be an instant loss if instead of blob you encounter a swarm of cheap infantry. On top of it if your faction can theoretically cast final - transmutation like spells, you may not have enough time to cast them fast enough to bring some units in the blob down before they potentially heal.

- the battle itself will be much shorter since you have to rush towards the point very quickly; forcing engagements to happen much earlier without things like setting up proper position/a trap etc.


    


What should be done to decrease the scope of problems mentioned above?

Increase the time for the point unlock. Instead of 1 minute, increase this to somewhere between 7,5 to 9 minutes. This will still allow the players to play the game mostly as before, just without the problem of the corner camping or the draw kiting. Increased time to fight/manouver gives the players more ability to inflict army lossess instead of winning through outright capping the point.

I did not test yet if the units have different cap weights as on domination. If that is the case, the elite units and some Single Entity monsters may need a buff in this regard.


Alternative solution? Make point open at 15 - 16 min mark and decrease the amount of points needed to win to 60 - 90. This will bring an experience much closer to the actual land battle without the corner camping or draw kiting. A battle will be played out in rather tactical way without resorting to forcing the gameplay around the capture point. Instead, the gameplay is based on the battle itself, with the point as a solution to the players who try to cheat the system.

As to the land battles themselves, in order to stop the corner camping and draw kiting I suggest:

- after 13 - 14 minutes pass, add an effect which constantly decreases leadership unless the unit is in melee fight or is shooting or casting spells per x seconds. Effect is not negated by unit simply shooting once or coming into melee for 1 s, it is slowly being reversed with the time spend doing activities mentioned above
- if the game ends in draw, give the win to the player with more balance of power bar (though this may require casters losing their balance of power effect as they cast spells)
- units very close to the map edge slowly lose leadership. If they move away from it, the effect disappears

-  rampage effect if the unit is not shooting or fighting in melee after 16 minutes.

I do not think that removing land battles from the ranked is a good idea. With conquest, land battles and domination game offers significtant amount of varied gameplay for strategy game fans. Land battles can be fixed with some of the few points mentioned above.


Edit:

Added arguments about factions with cheap expendable; with durable units; argument about elite - based factions, the alternative solution for the timer and capture point. Slightly increased suggested time before point opens up to the capture in the first idea and the time before the anti draw kite effects would kick in for the land battle propositions.

Included argument about battle time.



Updated 4 days ago.
0Send private message
4 days ago
Jun 25, 2024, 7:54:59 PM

I totally agree about the change in the capture point time, 1 minute doesn't make any sense, it takes much more time to fight the battle before the point opens. 


 And I also agree that they should not remove land battles from the game. They are the essence of Warhammer fantasy

0Send private message
4 days ago
Jun 25, 2024, 8:48:53 PM
I think it's a bit early to decide there are problems with Conquest mode. Certainly so far it just seems like Land Battle but with some protection against the most obnoxious of strategies.
The capture point takes about 8 minutes to tick to victory, which should be plenty of time to win a tactical victory even with artillery/elite infantry. 
0Send private message
4 days ago
Jun 25, 2024, 10:50:19 PM

Eh, you have a minimum of ~9:20s to decide the battle before the capture point. That's long enough for basically anything except some of the more extreme kite builds/strategies - most battles are effectively over in less time than that.


That said, there is some concern that Nurgle/VC in particular could sit on the point and hold out for that long in some match ups, so moving back the timer for the point to open from 1 minute to 3-4 minutes would be fine. There's no need to make the minimum cap point win battle length longer than 12 minutes or so.

0Send private message
4 days ago
Jun 26, 2024, 2:17:26 AM

while a slightly longer lockout may be helpful, a really long one as you’re describing has significant issues. It encourages some factions to just hide in the woods and come out later after the cap unlocks with your proposed shorter timer to win.


Your concerns have some validity though and as someone who worked on this mod for  a long time I think a few key tweaks will help. Will be posting another thread shortly on the topic.


Overall the game mode is almost there. And a big step up from prior quickbattle.

0Send private message
?

Click here to login

Reply
Comment