Halflings are either bugged or completely overpowered

[BATTLEMODE]

Maybe I'm getting dementia in my old age but Halfing Swordsmen have no right beating equivalent units from other races, yet they're consistently steamrollering the other races in combat. I know they've got Lucky and more models but they're still over-performing somehow.

I just looked up the Caster of Magic doc and I didn't see any particular nerf for them in that game, in fact Seravy gave them a research bonus on top of their food production bonus to make them more competitive, so I don't think I'm confusing this with CoM somehow.

[sIg3b]

Originally posted by Edmon:

Originally posted by sIg3b:

They weren´t that crazy good in the original. What has changed?

They were more powerful in the original, as ranged units got +1 attack bonus with the movement changes, with the exception of slingers. As they were always fantasically OP.

They are identical to the original game, which is a relative nerf.

I never found them more than a nuisance. But then I adhere to the overwhelming force approach, so I probably never fought them on even terms. You shouldn´t fight anybody on even terms; that´s what strategy is about.

[sIg3b]

Originally posted by archonsod:

Originally posted by BATTLEMODE:

No. Halfling Spearmen and Swordsmen completely outperform those units from other races... this is what that whole thing was about! Halfling Swordsmen will reliably beat anything not from Myrror in short order.

They don't completely outperform them. They'll usually beat the 'generic' version (orcs/humans/nomads) at the recruit level (and even then largely by attrition; it's only really the extra figures that gives them the advantage), but they'll struggle with those who also get bonuses (Gnolls, Klackons and to an extent Barbarians), bearing in mind they also cost more to build than other races swordsmen. They do tend to get better as you level them up, but even at Elite level they're roughly on a par with Regular Halberdiers.
That's kind of the point - their units will usually outperform the same units of most other races 1:1, but they don't outperform them to the point they can replace the next higher tier unit. As a result, magic aside, they tend to peak in the early mid-game. Once you start seeing stacks containing halberdiers, wizards and cavalry running around, or need to start clearing out nodes/caves with mid-tier summons, the slingers tend to be the only halfling unit that remains a viable threat on the battlefield, and even they'll start to struggle as invisibility, teleport and missile immunity start to become more common.

This, and I also seem to remember -I may be wrong here!- that Halflings are not very tough, more like tiny glass cannons. Would surprise me if they defeat Lizardmen or Trolls easily.

[Zelgeth]

Originally posted by easytarget:

You sound to me like you're over dramatizing this and it's not making you more persuasive. If what you're clutching pearls over was as bad as you say we wouldn't be here playing this again nearly 30 years later.

Symmetry in game design is a sure path to bland and boring, asymmetry is the way. We are very much going to have to agree to disagree on that point.

And if you're looking for balance you're playing the wrong game. But lucky for you there are endless streams of tactical and strategic games that are "balanced".

My advice: go play them.

Lmao, good thing you don't run the company then ey if your response is "don't like a small fraction of it, play something else". If a part of the player base thinks its too op and considering a most older games usually have horrendous balancing it sounds like you are just the outspoken minority that wants the game to be exactly the same as it always has been because you are too lazy to try something new. why are you playing the new one then? Go play the old version of the game that isn't the remake. Its called a remake and not a remaster for a reason.

[supergoh]

Originally posted by sIg3b:

This, and I also seem to remember -I may be wrong here!- that Halflings are not very tough, more like tiny glass cannons. Would surprise me if they defeat Lizardmen or Trolls easily.

Halfilng's power came from the 2 extra figures, Any increase to attack from buffs and level-ups also has a greater effect on their damage output, their offence also drops off quickly when they lose figures. I don't think regular half-lings can muster enough damage to outpace the HP and regeneration of a big stack of trolls without some serious buffs and level/numbers advantage

[BATTLEMODE]

The issue in the original was the double dipping effect on to-hit that Lucky gave. I can't tell yet whether MuHa have ported that effect over as it was, or whether they've done what the community patch (and Caster of Magic) did and remove the -10% malus from the opponents to-hit, because it seemed to be a bug as it was.

[sIg3b]

Originally posted by supergoh:

Originally posted by sIg3b:

This, and I also seem to remember -I may be wrong here!- that Halflings are not very tough, more like tiny glass cannons. Would surprise me if they defeat Lizardmen or Trolls easily.

Halfilng's power came from the 2 extra figures, Any increase to attack from buffs and level-ups also has a greater effect on their damage output, their offence also drops off quickly when they lose figures. I don't think regular half-lings can muster enough damage to outpace the HP and regeneration of a big stack of trolls without some serious buffs and level/numbers advantage

Yeah I think so. I would also try out Skeletons with their missile immunity against Halfling Slingers. Then we will see if the Slingers are so OP. :-)

[jasons073]

If you play as the monstrous races, you should get bonus food upon defeating halflings.

[sIg3b]

Just playing a game of 1.31 to test a few things.

First Outpost I encountered happened to be Halflings.

Defender: 2 Halfling Swordsmen + 1 Spearman.
Attacker (me): 3 Gnoll Swordsmen, 1 Skeleton Warrior, 1 Phantom Warrior (summoned in battle).

Halflings wiped out, I had zero losses.

Halflings are no problem, just as I remembered. OP my a**. :-))

[archonsod]

Originally posted by sIg3b:

This, and I also seem to remember -I may be wrong here!- that Halflings are not very tough, more like tiny glass cannons. Would surprise me if they defeat Lizardmen or Trolls easily.

Toughness isn't the issue; their defence is about average for the unit type, their resistance tends to be higher and of course the extra figures they get in most units effectively gives them higher health. It's offensive ability they tend to lack; they get a higher chance to hit, but lower attack. It's mitigated somewhat by the extra figures (it's why they beat most similar units, they don't hit significantly harder, there's just more of them. Which is why things like Gnolls can cause a problem, since they do hit harder) but it tends to have a steep drop off since the ultimate effect is to limit their maximum damage.
Fundamentally they're great at dealing multiple helpings of small amounts of damage. Which works great against low defence, multi-figure units. It's why they tend to drop off a cliff in the late game where high attack (or at least some means of getting around high defence) becomes more important; hitting eight times for 2 - 3 damage simply isn't going to do a whole lot against a Behemoth or Sky Drake.

[Thewizardlord]

Originally posted by drake178:

Originally posted by Thewizardlord:

A simple look at your posts in this very thread shows you talking on how hard you worked on community patches and defending it whenever someone says they prefer 1.31 over it.

And yet...

The very fact that someone mentions "community patches" in plural suggests that they have little knowledge of what they are talking about. They typically refer to what used to be called the "unofficial patches": v1.40 by kyrub, followed by v1.50-51 by Seravy, finally v1.52 by Seravy and myself. Since these followed each other and were built upon one another, not keeping track of their change logs yields a "logical" conclusion that if one was not so good, then the rest aren't either. Seravy also being the author of Caster of Magic doesn't reflect well in the pro-v1.31 group either, for obvious reasons.

I actually joined and took over maintaining the Community Patch for the very reason that I wasn't happy with the distance it strayed from the original. Before v1.52 released (which is the only Community Patch, by the way), I spent several days going over the patch logs in an attempt to find changes and to try to convince Seravy (the then caretaker of the project) to reverse them, often suggesting or writing replacement code myself. Sadly, the AI-related routines were at the time out of my scope, and they were Seravy's area of expertise anyway, so I had no leg to stand on.

All irrelevant proving what I said, you are biased.

[BATTLEMODE]

Originally posted by sIg3b:

Just playing a game of 1.31 to test a few things.

First Outpost I encountered happened to be Halflings.

Defender: 2 Halfling Swordsmen + 1 Spearman.
Attacker (me): 3 Gnoll Swordsmen, 1 Skeleton Warrior, 1 Phantom Warrior (summoned in battle).

Halflings wiped out, I had zero losses.

Halflings are no problem, just as I remembered. OP my a**. :-))

What do you expect with those forces? You should read the original post and thread.

[screamingpalm]

@22:25 "Halflings are considered the hard mode in the game". :D

https://youtu.be/ZQawcEuwnTw?t=1345

[Soylent_Greene]

As far as races are concerned it seems the Gnolls are pretty much useless IMHO...

They top out at Wolf Riders?

[Waterd103]

Gnolls i tink are top tier, Wolf riders are pretty crazy good. Yes they top out at wolf riders but why would you need anything else? In fact i think they need a nerf.
i think they are top 3 race, only behind halflings and Barbarians.

[Waterd103]

Here is my ranking of the arcanus races.
Halflings
Barbarians
Gnolls
High Elves
Lizardman
High Men
Klackons
Nomads
Orcs

And you can easily convince me that gnolls are better than barbarians.