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In order to buff something like Valdorian, which patch after patch was getting buffs (which was fine largely), the beta testers have decided to push mass nerfs on anything even ostensibly decent against Valdorians. Hence a mediocre and completely basic b*itch unit like Bounty Hunter Axe which OP mentioned that atleast had 4 absorptions going for it "merited" evisceration to 1 absorption, by dint of their weapon type having high armour shatter which is good against Valdorians and we can't have that. Now that i think about it a previous patch nerf to Forsaken Axeman 2>1 absorptions, one that also wasn't merited, was likely due to their Axe Shatter damage and their Shred Armour trait, which are good against Valdorian. Can't have him be more competent as a damage dealer, instead let him make do with one near useless ability in Grab against the 3 outa 5 Stalwart Valdorians who are immune to it,
So the equation is simple= Is it good against Valdorians? Well then it gets nerfed. Strong vs Armor, an unassuming and neglible Strong vs trait, likely the worst, EXCEPT against Valdorians. Can't have that can't we. So nerf it and now all units that are cursed with Strong vs Armor are crippled.
Liked having an option to control the shatterproof unstunnable Valdorians with something like Taunt on common pickups like Spearman/Swamper Spearmen or situational Focus like Challenge or Provoke? Neh not anymore, now Unbreakable which all Valdorians have get Taunt immunity.
Wasted 880 Life Essence building up a level 10 Sharp Eyes to deal with armored units? Sad for you, you won't being be piercing Valdorians, half damage due to damage reduction for you. Liked atleast getting the status effects applied from Sharp Eyes, human units like Spearman/Javelinier with Pierce that Armour? Nah you shouldn't have liked it, poof goodybe. Oh but atleast Valdorian Armor got reduced back to a reasonable +50%. So how do we turn even a "nerf" which just restored the correct balance in the first place into a positive for Valdorians? By nerfing Strong vs Armour ofcourse so even if you destroy the armour you now lose Strong vs benefit. Chain complete.
Now thankfully the Dev is getting some good feedback from us on Steam, so occasionally merited buffs happen like Scavenger Warlord going from 2>3 absorptions.
It would be nice if we could have steam polls on balance changes/nerfs to get a wider array of input and opinions than just the beta testers on discord.This is the public forum for the game where its being sold, and where the most people will see things. I am pretty confident we wouldn't be seeing anywhere near the amount of nerfs if the broader playerbase input was being solicited, and even the nerfs that might be worth trying would be more appropriately balanced (say if the option was given to either not nerf or nerf Bounty Hunter Axe from its 4 absorptions to either 3, 2, or 1, assuming 4 wouldn't easily win, the second most likely victor would be to nerf it to 3 Absorptions which might be more reasonable and certainly less extreme than to 1).
Tldr; Keep pushing for more absorptions and customizability, less nerfs for all the units and starts the player can use, to help counteract a narrow group that is clearly pushing for the opposite.
There are also ridiculous things like Vampire Lord becoming uncecessarily hard to obtain. I can understand if it's valdorian, but a mediorce greatsword user with no armour and no defensive trait at all? Big oof.
Vampire lord built properly is arguably one of the strongest units in the entire game. Vampire lord, rabbit werebeast and valdor Xbow, 3 best.
now that I just typed that, I still feel that nerf was merited that you guys are talking about from 2>1 absorb slots, but thinking about it some more, that next nerf of forsaken axeman, when they made tower positions immune to displacement, they should have buffed forsaken axeman back when they did that to grab. maybe even to 3 absorb slots.
ok on the original topic, I'm all for more absorb slots.
So we actually get a massive nerf of Foresaken Axeman's usefulness in the latest patch, BUT do we get a return of 1>2 Absorptions to counterbalance that????? NOOO! This is why we are going in the wrong direction. All we get is nerf after compounding nerf, and clearly the beta testers swaying the Dev against his better instincts don't have a grasp of the bigger picture to realize that if some new changes indirectly but effectively are nerfing a unit that got previously nerfed, that it's incumbent on us and ultimately the Dev to revisit the previous contentious nerf and realize it needs to be reverted to provide counterbalance.
Now a different point is if the nerf to Foresaken Axeman was merited in the first place. The answer is no, because the only thing potenially strong about the foresaken axeman wasn't the fact that he had 2 absorptions, but his situationally great Grab ability. Grabs effectiveness would be the same regardless of if he was level 1 or level 50, regardless of if he had 400 max hp or 4000 max hp, regardless of if he had 50 damage or 300 damage, regardless of if he had 1 or 2 absorptions. Now that Grab has been significantly nerfed with Ballistae displacement immunity, there is no longer even the pretense of a case for the initial nerfs to remain.
Yes on some maps Foresaken Axeman was an mvp (now he is drastically worse against the maps that counted most, Fortress battles). So what. That isn't broken. That is situationally strong. Ram units or Bash Units or Flip units or Uplift units or even units with pushing critical mutators could also be great on many maps. There is nothing wrong with that. It doesn't mean the units merit a nerf. There is already a significant amount of enemies with Stalwart, so let the units with movement abilities get to shine occasionally against some of the enemies on certain maps.
Yes one should strive to have a roster of competent and built up units, likely over 10+ ideally, precisely so that one can sub in units that are strong against certain enemies or strong on certain maps. So for example against beasts/werebeasts one would rarely bring in Foresaken Axeman since he is clearly at his weakest point. That can allow one to sub in a unit who is underwhelming in other battles but has Strong vs Beast so now he can contribute and shine. The game NEEDS this flexibility, as its one of the main reasons to care about getting and building up more than a core group of 6-7 units.
I do think Light Foot needs to be considered since every single unit needs to absorb it or have that trait. It’s just sad using a Monk’s only absorption slot on Light Foot.
I tend to agree pull is difficult to utilize and I have been proposing that the Beast pulling units overcome stalwart due to their inherent strength and they can only pull in straight lines. It’s gained no support. However the Forts are meant to be difficult and take perhaps 2-3 assaults to complete otherwise expect injuries.
Map 3 factions are forsaken (all units are grabbable) and necros (3 out of 5 units are grabbable) so I'd hardly call the axeman grab there.
The forsaken axeman absorption change was not suggested by anyone AFAIK, it was a personal decision from the dev.
About the "nerf situation", if you take a look at the changelog, the vast majority of changes have been buffs to units/factions. To put it into perspective:
- All swamper units except the shaman got +1 absorption slot.
- Beast rhino got pushing crits+disengagement, porcupine got toxic cloud, beast puller light weapon, beast trutle got a plate armor instead of chainmail, karwla beasts get 100 absorption slots.
- 1-handed sword users get light weapon that previously didn't have before (guardian, swamp marauder, valdor shieldbearer.
- Valdor Reaper gained first strike, preemptive strike, projectiles blocker
- Warlord gaine 1 abs. slot, also a helmet.
- Scavenger Warrior gained 1 abs. slot
- Forsaken shieldbearer and defender went from 3 to 5 abs. slots
I am sure I am forgetting about other changes/buffs, but those are the ones I can come up from the top of my head. Now, it is possible some units could still get buffs (swamp engager comes to mind) but saying there is a nerf culture seems disingenous to me. Also, at the end of the day, it's the dev's criteria which has the last word about what does (or doesn't) get changed.
all these nit picking nerfs usually happen after the game is done, we need new content to beta test and keep moving forward to get to launch ... where the dev gets paid
and hopefully the game does well and we get a dlc
(more factions, maps and modding)
you got my vote on beast chain grab, same for that tentacle face beast dude, that guy is huge
these giants should grab just as a footman can push a stalwart
I am not in favor of your proposal and do like there being a max cap on absorptions. Wouldn't mind if their was a minimum for every unit of atleast 2 absorptions.
I agree that Light Foot is a Pure Staple, more than any other mutator by a mile. A unit without inherent Light Foot is already -1 on absorbtions effectively since that is THE essential trait, nothing compares. Even Rotate from Battle Brothers isn't anywhere near as much a Staple as Light Foot is in Urtuk.
Beast Grab and Die is definitely more difficult to utilize than Grab. I'm fine with that though, it has a significant benefit even if one isn't pulling into Death Tile, granting an Assassin's Mark effect to the pulled unit. I am strongly against the idea of making Grab and Die override Stalwart. Beasts already have a unit that ignores Stalwart with the Rhino's Ram. I am glad that proposal has gotten no support, it doesn't merit it. Ostensibly it may seem like its primarily a Buff to the Beast & Werebeast that have it. In reality though in the hands of the player using the beasts it will be overpowered. More importantly its actually a significant nerf to the player since now all those stalwarts one absorbed have become even more useless. I remember Filthyrobot being annoyed with Ram change that allowed it to ignore Stalwart (Albeit that was for the best), this change would be 100x times worse.
I haven't played a Run yet on the new patch, you are right that the Valdorian taunt immunity was partially reverted. That doesn't really affect the thrust of my points. Event the fact that all Valdorians got taunt immunity (briefly) should be alarming. Something is woefully amiss.
Nope this is what the dev said when i initially pushed back on the Foresaken Axeman nerf over a month ago-
Can't really get any clearer than this that the "seasonal players" are pushing for these unmerited nerfs.
I haven't seen anything in the Changelog about Swampers getting +1 absorbtion slot. If so that is good. I did see the Swamper nerf to Shaman who both lost starting Concentration AND now has his focus gains from spells cut by 30%. I don't have any experience with the Shaman, only have extensively used Swamp Marauder and Swamp Spearmen, but those seem to be significant nerfs to the Shaman, and i all but surely am opposed to it.
You list a bunch of buffs that beasts got. Now that is technically also a buff for the player if using the New beast start. A couple months ago that would have been buffs to the A.I not the player (which i am fine with. Enemies getting stronger is no problem, as long as its not constantly at the EXPENSE of the player i.e players units and builds and strategy becoming obsolete due to things like strong vs armour getting nerfed to oblivion, piercing becoming dead, taunt getting crippled etc etc etc).
I do agree with the change to 1 handed sword users all getting Light Weapon. A good move. Maybe some minor buff should be applied to Assassin/Scavenger Assassin since Light Weapon on him was supposed to be unique as a prodigously speedy blade user (as opposed to something like a Guardian who is carrying a shield and helmet, and clearly isn't in the same league as an Assassin when wielding a blade). I was already going to propose a regular human assassin getting a boost of 1>2 absorption slots so that it isn't strictly worse than scavenger assassin (who i love) who has Hastening Criticals (at +20 speed) and another trait that regular assassin doesn't have.
"Valdor Reaper gained first strike, preemptive strike, projectiles blocker" This is effectively a buff to the A.I, not the player. Sure one can eventually recruit Reapers, i see them on Map 3 regularly, but there is no Valdorian start, so this is an A.I buff. I'm sure you couldn't have missed my paragraphs discussing valdorians.. That being said i am FINE with valdorian units getting buffed, as long as their "buffs" aren't really just nerfs to the player like nearly all the recent changes to Valdorians have been (as i have listed extensively in multiple places).
I already commented on Scavenger Warlord buff. The absorption slot was my suggestion that the Dev listened to.
"Forsaken shieldbearer and defender went from 3 to 5 abs. slots" In my first main post on Urtuk (titled "Comprehensive Bugs, Balance, Suggestions for this Gem") i touched on this. At the time i wasn't thinking about the 5 absorption slots if one does the Foresaken Start, which allows the 5 absoption slots to shine much more since one can actually gain full benefit before the end of the game. I was more focused on how when one gets the chance to recruit those foresaken units on Map 3, its really already too late to make use of all those slots. I'll add now that even for the Foresaken start it really isn't relevant, since I don't consider ANY unit worth a pick at the start if one can get them later with Soldier Perk. Having +40% armour is game changing, not having it means one is wasting their time recruiting them. So there are only 3 units worth choosing in the foresaken start, so those 5 absorption slots on the defender and shieldbearer are not anywhere near as good as it may seem since by the time one gets them with Soldier Perk its already Map 3 and near end game..
"but saying there is a nerf culture seems disingenous to me"
Then you are not paying attention. That's fine though, you are entitled to think the nerf issue doesn't exist. However throwing in "disingenuous" is more than a little insulting. I am not being disingenuous, I have a view with evidence to support it based on the trajectory and focus on alot of the patch changes the past couple months. You don't have to ascribe to it or agree with it, but it still doesn't make it "disingenuous"
Yes the Dev makes the final decisions. Ultimately the responsibility is on him if ill advised changes are done (the overwhelming majority of new additions have been great). However he is largely listening to players when it comes to balance changes. I just think its in the best interest of the game that he isn't exclusively and or even primarily listening to a few "seasonal" discord beta testers, but rather gets the input of the larger public Urtuk community, which is represented here on Steam, the primarily place the game is sold, the first search result on search engines.
I am not one that cares much about backgrounds and visuals and the like. Until today Urtuk for me has been 100% about the combat. However earlier today as i was finishing up Map 4, i was actually paying attention to the surroundings and really noticing how bleak and threadbare it is. Repeats of the same statue endlessly. Lifeless buildings and spires on repeat. Its honestly not visually pleasing. More can be and should be done to imbue SOME life into the actual scenary and map. As it stands now its basically just a background prop disguised as a map that is really just about going from Battle A to Battle B.
Indeed. That is part of why its so perplexing. The recent major patch that included some new content in the form of bosses was likely a good move that we needed. However all these patches with unwanted nerfs is really not we should be doing NOW when the game isn't even officially launched. Anything short of game breaking overpowered shouldn't be touched. The only major balance changes until launch should just be reverting many of these nerfs, with the top candidate being Strong vs Armour going back into its actually playable state.